Graybeard Outdoors banner

How are things coming along now?

2K views 16 replies 6 participants last post by  charles p 
#1 ·
Started canning a few green beans and picking some raspberries and blueberries. Have red potatoes yet most plants never seemed to blossom... or at least I didn’t notice that they did. Zuchs, yellow summer squash and cukes do what they do. But the real disappointment is my winter squash. I have three butter cup hills and I see only one squash total. I have cut leaves back so the bees could find the blossoms easier, but I think it has been so hot that all I am getting is male blossoms and hardly any female blossoms at all. It’s a good thing we got a lot of squash last year so still have lots in the freezer. Also our raspberries are crumbly and misshapen. At first I thought maybe it was because of the heat and maybe we were not giving them enough water. But looking it up it appears as though there is some type of an insect that can have that affect on your raspberries And there is really nothing you can do about it.

Long
 
#2 ·
Been covered up with tomatoes, after planting very late made a stand of okra and black eye peas and picking yellow squash. Looks like we'll be replanting okra after the deer managed to get past my electric fence and ate half of it down to the ground.





badger
 
#3 ·
i have to admit my little spot has been a bad disappointment
as far as yield.
i can only speculate that the cool/cold spring we had
and all those 40 degree nights put the voodoo on me.
what little i've made has been eaten right off and there's
been nothing to put up for later. where i was filling a freezer
bag every few days with beans, i've barely had enough to
fill one bag what with the beans i've eaten and what the
varmints got away with.
i'm glad others have done well because i sure haven't
 
#4 ·
Every thing I still have looks good.
Radishes did fine, as did the Mustard and Lettuce but all have bolted though I still use some lettuce.


Sweet corn looks real good but a ways away from have cobs.
Potatoes are looking real good but my very last planting mostly did not come up which is not all bad as I will have far more than I need or can use.


Tomatoes now have fruit on them though all are still green , while squash is now going wild sending out vines.
To much vegetation in the North garden so I should do some weeding and see if the cucumbers have some fruit I can use.
Carrots look real good above ground but we will see in the fall.


Onions are doing well and have gotten a lot of broccoli this year.
I moved some volunteer squash and tomatoes from the North garden to the South and it seems they are doing well, last time I checked.
Though slow to get going things look real good right now.
 
#6 ·
It has been a good year for flower gardens, when the humid heat hit hear it was almost like it is with corn, you could hear them growing at night.
Although they say do not do it, even though I have in the past, potting soil, at least some , we used this year has horrid moisture retention qualities so mixing in some garden soil reduces the nasty wilting if you miss a regular watering .
I have been dealing with hanging pots for decades and know those you buy do not hold water but some Sharon created herself are just as bad. :sad:

I finally finished weeding both the North and South gardens last night. South has not been sprouting weeds as soon as you turn your back on it any more, and I turned into a yellow toast a large patch of Nut Sedge.
**** squash bug got into the one squash down there I bought; I cut them out but doubt it will survive. All those that are transplanted volunteers look good but are at least two week behind.
Transplanted tomatoes down South look amazingly good.
It now seems last potatoes I planted are not coming up and since the dozen or so I kept in a bucket, in the house , have not sprouted yet, I am wondering if I should call the company and ask just what in hades name they sent me. :grumbling:

North garden turned into a green jungle due to laziness on my part, plus poor planting planning with too much , too close together.
I crawled in, literally, thank God my knees seem to be a lot tougher than they were ten years ago, and pulled weeds, and thinned mostly tomatoes but also some carrots.
Chiles are not doing great but one or two are doing better than the rest; squash came up gang busters and I am thinking of removing one or so of them as they, even when redirected , want to go where they do not belong. :blinking:
Cucumbers, look like , they will finally give me enough cukes I might pickle some, maybe; I finally pulled most of the lettuce yesterdeay and found out , IF, planted in good soil, with structural support, I.E. in the middle of a cage for string beans, lettuce plants can grow six feet high and get two inches in diameter at the base. :lol:
I pulled it so I could reach in and get the beans without hunting. :whistling:
It is by the compost pile and fence so it is a good moist area and was literally a jungle of tall Oxalis and short Cleome also.
I kind of hated weeding it but there was Chick Weed in their too and that has been my buttocks agitator for too many years now.
Potatoes are going gangbusters now, and I will get some sweet corn but probably should have reduced my seeding rate by one half although cob production should be good with them being so crowded.
I actually have some Tomatillos, I will use as they popped up by the sweet corn area path that no longer exists as volunteer this and that has set root there.
 
#7 ·
As it appears now, a good year for tomatoes.
I love Green Zebra, and after three years of total failure, for reasons pretty much unknown, those I planted this year after a very slow start will give me a bounty.
A very large GZ is usually the size of a tennis ball, well this year I some that are as big around as a fast pitch soft-ball.


They are just starting to ripen now but in a week and past I will have a lot of tomatoes from four varieties.
First year in many I will have enough cukes to pickle if I so choose.
Squash are taking off up down up North and down South look healthy when they start fruiting should have plenty.
Sweet corn, two types are now in full tassle, which will give me mixed cobs but as they are both sweet corn should not be a problem.
 
#8 ·
I am digging potatoes now.
Down South the plants have mostly died; the yield , or size of potatoes, is less than I prefer but many were new varieties so that many be there norm.
Some planted later, again different variety, have produce nice large ones; a blue type I put in, soil that had had nothing grown on it, it had been a path did VERY well.
Some expensive ones I put in late, mid-June and I though had rotted in the ground, about two weeks ago popped out of the ground and are now over a foot high.
I suspected some thing odd as ones I did not plant and were going to eat sitting on a chair in the kitchen , about two weeks ago finally sprouted.
We will see how many potatoes I get out of those late plants.


Up North the plants are still mostly green with one purple type sending vines that covered most of the garden.
I cut them off, and hope that did not screw things up.
I am going to go out today and cut all those potatoes vines down to a foot or so to speed up their vines dying.
I planted some of the same type down South in a empty space in the rose garden and they too are huge and some vines were still blooming 10 days ago.
I have grown this type before many times and never had this happen.
 
#9 ·
My mid-June planted potatoes are now flowering but the weather from well above average to well below may not give them the whole month of Oct. if we get an early freeze.
It was in the eighties last week, well over 10 degrees above normal, and now it is in the fifties 10 degrees below average but it is raining several inches every week; farmers are taking in the butt this year.


I dug out all potatoes that dies off down South in the black gumbo and had to break up mud clumps with my hands to find at least one half of the potatoes. Potatoes planted in an area that had been mostly walking path for the past two decades did far, far better , for size any way than those planted in the former rose garden with choice soil but then they were a different variety so that may be part of the reason for larger size.


If weather holds will get a nice batch of squash, butter nut, and about one half dozen muskmelons from volunteer transplants.
This is the first year ever I will be cutting off potato vines to speed up vine die off, odd year about the opposite of some 15 years ago when we had eighties into Oct. with drier than normal.
 
#11 ·
Had a pretty good year but its all over now. Hard frost last week. Picked and salvaged everything just in time. Weather man told me it was coming and we hit it just right. Good year for beans, cucumbers, tomatoes and onions. Corn and lettuce, not so much. Hot for a week, then cold for a week pretty much all summer. Strange weather but it is, what it is.
 
#12 · (Edited)
I pulled all the tomato plants up North except for the other half's cherry type, which I do not like but she does.
Its yield was/is far, far , far more than any one can eat. Too bad I do not like sweet tomtatoes.
I did it in short and barefoot ,so as not to drag dirt into the house, you can take a hose and just wash off your feet and legs, but when it is in the fifties you learn to move fast. I did have a long sleeve shirt on.
Lawn needs mowing and the short hour days are now catching up to me as it takes me weeks to really adapt to shortening hours.
Rained again last night so I will have no choice but to work in a truly wet garden as there are some things that just cannot be put off any longer.
Of course I know after I am done muddying around we will get a week of nice dry warmer weather, at least that is how it has gone in the past.
Frost is coming next weekend but the only thing that would really screw up is the squash vines and I may cover them with sheets up North but it may put an end to my very, very late potatoes down South but that is fifty miles South and it may not frost down there.
 
#13 ·
I dug up the potatoes in the North garden yesterday.
Less than a bushel out of an area approx. 6 x 11.

About two thirds are Purple Peruvian which averaged in size less than the size of an average woman's thumb.
Do not know why the PP this year sent vines out like they were on supper growth drugs.
Even the ones I gave to my Cousin's mom did that.


Sadly the the ones that came from the original tuber, 8 or more inches underground gave only three or four at best average size for a PP.
I will be making a lot of dishes this year that use small to tiny potatoes.


Even with the far more sandy soil up North I ended up digging, after breaking ground with a shovel , literally by hand as often they were in a dirt clump and I had to break it up by hand which is far easier without gloves plus I did dig the hole deeper by hand often find where the potatoes were, all varieties, were by touch as often the potatoes are not under the plant.
Usually I would get, all varieties, some 3 to 4 potatoes shallower and then most down deep.
This year there were only one or two, to 0 shallow, with nothing between the deep and shallow ones .

Some plants had one or two small ones shallow and they nothing else.
I have never had that before, in the past I would get a lot of small , man's thumb size in a bad year, all varieties but never anything like this.


After spending another 4 hours on my knees, my knees are fine, but my buttocks and arms are sore.
I can see the arm part as I force the shovel in with my forearms and one hand on the shovel but that must use my brains, oops, my butt also.
 
#14 ·
My garden is done for the year and I am ok with that. I like gardening but by end of September I am glad it’s done. Canning and freezing has paid off and it’s nice to have a full freezer and pantry shelves. Every year some things do well and other things not so much. My raspberries and blueberries did not have a good year but most other things ended up doing ok by the end of the season. It’s a blessing to be able to put food up for the long winters we have up here.

Long
 
#15 ·
I must have lost my mojo as even five years ago I did my best to fight cold weather in fall and keep the garden going.
Covering tomatoes and chiles into late Oct.
I now have those oddball late potatoes , one volunteer tomato, that is still disease free and I did not know was there as it was in among the potato vines, and some squash vines that if covered when frost hits would let the squash ripen more naturally.
I have zero desire to go to the hassle , where as for decades, **** fire could not have stopped me from trying to push till temps. hit the twenties.
I WILL save that tomato as it has some nice clean large ones near picking stage, and as it survived this long with zero help from me, it deserves surviving a little longer.
I have never covered a potato plant before, I never had any blooming in Oct. before, and just do not know if it is worth the effort as they are in my South garden fifty miles from where I am now.
 
#16 ·
i'll call my little mess a failure for this year.
it was pretty much too cool for too long this spring,
then way too blistering hot for too long with no in between.
now, we're having the 40 degree nights which will kill all
the plants i worked so hard through the hot summer to keep
alive.
all that said, i'll still have another this next year.
just call me stoo-pid :p
 
This is an older thread, you may not receive a response, and could be reviving an old thread. Please consider creating a new thread.
Top