Tennessee 2024 Garden

[imafan26]

sounds delish.

[Gary350]

This morning I put bird nets over the strawberry plants and found 1 quart + 1 cup of ripe strawberries. I made about 200 wooden stakes to hold down the 4 bird nets. Temperature warmed up to 74° for 3 days in a row. TV claims 83° to 87°f Fri to Wed. Warm temps should make a lot of ripe berries.

[Gary350]

We picked almost 1 gallon of ripe strawberries this morning. I pulled up all 150 Pac Choy a woman from the community garden can and got them to give away.

1 experiment leads to another. Irrigation to the left potato row for 30 minutes then rotate hose to the right potato row for 30 minutes. It beats standing there for an hour with a water hose.

[Gary350]

I am learning new things about strawberries. Allstar strawberries are very large, they look very good but the good strawberry flavor is not there. Commercial growers probably love these plants they have fewer leaves this makes ripe berries very easy to see, fast berry pickers can probably pick a basket of grocery store berries in 30 seconds. Wait and see if flavor gets better.

The heirloom strawberries are smaller and slower to pick. Leaves need to be pushed left right back and forth to find ripe berries. With practice I am getting faster. If a plant has 1 ripe berry it usually has 8 more ripe berries. All the plants do not have ripe berries at the same time. The baskets laying on their side shows heirloom on the left and Allstar on the right.

I picked 1½ gallons of berries yesterday, I picked twice, about 8 am and about 6 pm. This morning I picked another gallon of ripe berries. I will pick again about 6 pm.

2" of heavy rain is forecast for tonight. If I fertilize strawberry plants again it will be with 0-20-20 plants do not need more nitrogen. Garden might be too muddy to pick berries tomorrow morning, wait and see. I ordered a berry slicer $8 free postage.

[Gary350]

This morning I picked 3 baskets of ripe strawberries about 2½ gallons. I will need to pick berries again this evening about 6 pm berries are ripe twice a day. Yesterday I picked 2 baskets of berries. Day before that 1½ baskets of berries. The 2" of rain we had made potato plants grow 1 ft taller. Garden soil is still very wet and we have 4 days of rain in the forecast starting Friday. If I leave the garden hose run 12 hours I can not do what mother nature does with 1 rain. I hope it continues to rain once a week until June 15. Potato hills are loaded with large cracks new potatoes are like 100s of hydraulic jacks take push the soil apart.

[imafan26]

I only get one or two strawberries from my dozen plants. I wish I got more. I have problems with birds and beetles and slugs, they love strawberries too.

[Gary350]

3 gallons of strawberries picked in 1 hr 5 min. If the plants were not crowded so tight berries would be easier to see and pick quicker but fewer plants would be less berries. I should be picking ripe berries every 12 hrs not every 24 hrs.

[applestar]

Looking great!
Are you planning to make wine with the strawberries? Cordial?

[Gary350]

Looking great!
Are you planning to make wine with the strawberries? Cordial?

Last summer I was thinking about making strawberry wine but this year I'm not. My interest in wine comes and goes it gives me something to do in bad weather. Good wine needs to age 3 to 5 years I already have 36 gallons of wine waiting to be bottled and 200 empty bottles are taking up a lot of space and 200 bottles of wine will take up a lot of space also. We moved to a smaller house 10 years ago I don't have a good place to keep 200 bottles of wine. I need to start bottling wine to see how it tastes then many give some away if I don't like the flavor. Most wine goes through a phase where it taste worse before it taste better the wine books call the the dumb phase. Blackberry is known to go through a dumb phase it taste so bad after 3 years it tasted like it spoiled and needs to be trashed then 1 year later it tastes much better and 2 years later it might we first place in a wine contest. I don't like white wine as much as red wine white has its own flavor. I made strawberry wine from a Wine expert kit 25 years ago I gave most of it away. I am curious about wine made from home grown strawberries it might be fun and might be good and a mix of blackberries and strawberries might be better. The only wine I can make from scratch that is better than factory wine is 1 year old Elderberry and 5 year old blackberry. I drove 90 miles on gravel country roads last summer looking for Elderberries they are extremely had to find, they use to be easy to find. I would like to have all this wine out of the house it is so easy to buy 2 bottles of good wine once a week, it takes up less space and taste better than anything I can make. At the moment I am not motivated to do anything with wine but I might make 1 gallon of strawberry wine and 1 gallon of 50/50 strawberry and blackberry. Wife has 6 gallons of strawberries in the freezer and I am trying my best to eat as many as I can 3 times a day. 36 gallons of wine has totally taken over bedroom #3 in our house I guess 38 gallons won't be very much worse, after wine is bottled it takes up more space. If I can get motivated again I might make 2 more gallons of wine.

[Gary350]

Romaine lettuce & mix lettuce are starting to get bitter, is hot weather doing that? We have been having 83° to 89° weather. Now we have 7 days of rain in the forecast. Chicken sandwich with a whole Romaine lettuce plant was good for lunch. We have been watching a Robin family in the nest on our patio, today about 12 moon the 1st baby flew from the nest then about 1 pm the 2nd baby flew from the nest babies are 12 days old. Last summer Robin family had 3 eggs 3 times = 9 babies we have no clue if this is the same family. Babies can not fly yet it seems like a miracle if babies survive the night.

[Gary350]

Wow LOOK the potato plants have blossoms. My potato plants have not had blossoms in 45 years. We are having rain every day, sky is very dark and over cast. 45 years ago when I was growing potatoes in a stack of 3 car tires plants always had blossoms. Tires have places that hold water I bet that was good for keeping a continuously water supply for potato plants. My neighbors potato plants have blossoms the west end of his garden is full shade from about 10 am to dark, he plants his potatoes in the shade. I plant my tomatoes in shade it works. It is hard to duplicate mother nature rain & dark over cast sky, I can not duplicate mother nature with a water hose. If I give each potato plant row 100 gallons of water plants still have no blossoms. Rain and over cast and cool temperatures seem to be very helpful for potato plants. We have had no temperatures above 89° yet. Next year I will plant potatoes March 1st with all the potato rows on the west end of the garden under the shade tree plants will get sun until 12 noon the coolest time of the day.

[applestar]

When lettuce starts to go bitter (milky sap is an indicator) I like to (roughly chop first) quick toss/sauté in frying pan of butter and/or olive oil just until coated in oil and brighter in color, add a little liquid (water or tomato juice or broth) then a splash of balsamic vinaigrette dressing (you can use your preferred dressing). I prefer if there still a bit of crunchy texture left.

Great as side dish, on sandwiches, or on pasta with or without pasta sauce.

[Gary350]

We have a few cicadas there is probably 1000 on the sides of the shed. Wife blows the patio several times a day to try to keep them gone but they return within 2 hours. Dog is eating them. A woman on TN FB keeps claiming cicadas will cause intestinal blockage and kill your pets. Everyone keeps telling her, its free dog food there is no blockage but may be a little diarrhea. I see no cicada damage to the garden they seem to grow wings and die. It is hard to relax on the patio cicadas climb up my legs and fly and land on us, I don't mind them they don't bite.

[applestar]

I’m sure there’s a difference between eating them fresh out of the ground while soft and eating the week old hardened and spent ones that fall out of the trees. I’ve heard that chickens, pigs, horses and cattle would eat the tough, crunchy, spiky ones too.

I posted a while back about a club in Tokyo Japan that get together to gather the just emerged pale, soft cicadas … just after dawn in public parks and cook them up right there to try eating in different ways.

I think the article said the consensus is they taste best directly tossed into hot oil to fry without batter or flour coating and immediately scooped up… if you want to try?

I think they made different flavors by tossing the fried crispy cicadas in dry herb and spice mix, sugar, cheese powder, cayenne hot pepper powder, habanero, wasabi, etc.

[Gary350]

I collected 70 gallons of rain water in 5 gallon buckets in 30 minutes from the roof. Garden mud is worse than before it will take a whole week of hot sunny windy days to dry out. I think potatoes will be good with all this water but not the strawberries. I usually plant corn & beans about May 10 but not this year. Potato plants have fallen over I'm not sure if they will stand them self up again.

[Gary350]

G-90 bicolor corn is planted. 4 rows, 32" between rows, 5" between seeds, 75 seeds each row, 300 seeds total. It was 92° today and averaging 65° at night. We have rain forecast every day for 6 days. Wait and see what happens. I will not need to water corn 3 times ever day this year. Trenches are 3" deep, seeds are pushed into the soil 2" deep. Once corn is 12" tall I will hill soil up on the plants this will allow the roots that are several inches above the soil to grow plus soil will help hold up the corn stocks in our high wind.

[Gary350]

Radar shows rain is 1 hour away 4:28 pm, it is very easy to find ripe strawberries when sky is over cast. Full sun is blinding. I picked another gallon of ripe berries.

[Gary350]

Garden is boring this year. (Boring) x 500 = extremely boring. There is nothing to do. I have done nothing for a month but pick 12 gallons of strawberries. Corn seeds rotted in the mud and we have another 6 days of rain forecast. All the plants are large enough to shade out all the weeds & grass there are no weeds anywhere. I drove to Farmers Co-op this morning bought more corn seed maybe I can plant corn again by July or August. A few more weeks it will be time to dig potatoes.

[Gary350]

Garlic tops have all fallen over so I dug up the bulbs. I am surprised to have such a good harvest after -7° temperatures appeared to have killed all 98 garlic plants. I did not count these, not sure how many are here. 1 bulb fell aways into about 10 cloves.

[Gary350]

Today I found a true potato seed in the strawberry basket. I searched for more and found several including a cluster of 12 hanging there like 12 grapes. I only picked 3 leave the rest to get ripe. Videos show a true potato seed can have 50 to 500 seeds inside that look identical to tomato seeds, that will grow potato plants. July I might plant a few potato seeds just to learn what grows. These are suppose to be very toxic poison more than potato leaves.

[Gary350]

Wife said, pantry is out of potatoes. I dig up 4 plants that were dead or dying. 2 Red Norland potato plants produced 4 lbs. of new potatoes. 1 Purple Adirondack plant produced 1 lb 8 oz of new potatoes. 1 Russet plant produced 2 lbs. of about 20 small new potatoes. 7½ lbs. of new potatoes. I pulled up 5 carrots also.

Russet potatoes never grow well in TN, I had 6 potatoes sprouting in the pantry I could not resist planting them.

[applestar]

Love it! This must be so satisfying.

[Gary350]

My son took all the potatoes and onions that I picked yesterday home with him. Wife needs more potatoes this morning. I dug up 1 Kennebec plant 2 week early this is a very good harvest 2 lbs. from 1 plant, in the past we typically got 1 lb. of new potatoes per Kennebec plant. Rain 6 days every week is probably helpful for a big potato harvest. I pulled up several Leeks and dug up more potatoes. Onion crop is not good this year I had to search for several minutes to find 4 large onions, 1 Vidalia, 1 yellow onion, 1 red onion, 1 white onion. Every thing I read about moles say they are meat eaters, they eat, worms, bugs, grubs, termites, ants, larva, etc. but not potatoes. I dug up 2 more Russet potato plants the nothing was there but mole tunnels, no potatoes. I still think moles eat potatoes but can't prove it.

[applestar]

It might be voles/field mice — larger than the small eastern moles and has a stubby tail

They use mole tunnels.

…Did you set up those windmill flowers yet? Do you still have them? That might help.

[Gary350]

It might be voles/field mice — larger than the small eastern moles and has a stubby tail

They use mole tunnels.

…Did you set up those windmill flowers yet? Do you still have them? That might help.

Dog & cat seem to keep mice under control we often see the dead bodies on the patio.

No windmill flowers yet they are in the storage shed. Rain 6 days every week I didn't put out the 6 ft tall chickens either. Garden is in a terrible mess this year I can't till mud to kill weeds and grass.

I have 6 blue bird houses birds had nest in the house east side of the garden first. Now blue birds are in the house at the west side of the garden. Robins did the same they had a nest in 1 location then after babies were gone they made a new nest in a different location.

If mud would ever dry up I will till the corn and replant. I need to clear away all the rotten onions to plant Roma beans. 4 rows of very large potato plants make too much shade for mud to dry up. We need a week of 20 mph wind and 90° with no rain to dry up the wet soil.

When the garden turns to hot dry desert with no rain that is not good either.

[Gary350]

Onions did better than I originally thought. After pulling up grass & weeds then scraping away dead stuff then pulling onions out of the mud and washing them clean they look good. I put everything larger than 2" on the patio table. These were all planted from bulbs or small plants. I have no clue how any onions we have. It appears that about 5% of the plants made seed tops. I am going to save a seed mix of, red, white, yellow, Vidalia, seeds to plant Sept.

[Gary350]

1 more gallon of berries. Half go in the freezer the other 1/2 will be strawberry short cake again. I bought yogurt but still have not make a smoothie. As long as plants keep producing I will keep picking. I need to start potting runners, I need 75 plants to make 3 new rows of strawberries for next summer.

[Gary350]

This morning we put 32 lbs of chopped onions in the freezer and about 40 large slicer onions in the pantry. About 2 weeks ago most of the onion tops fell over and have been drying in the sun. Day before yesterday morning I pulled up onions and covered each patio table with all the onions they could hold. About 8 am this morning I pulled up the rest of the garden onions. About 9 am wife got out the chopper machine and started pealing onions. Any onion with a stem the size of a broom handle will not keep in the pantry so it has to be chopped even if it's a nice large slicer onion. For 3 hours I pealed onions outside and wife pealed onions in the kitchen. Wife ran the chopper machine and put onions in 1 lb. bags. Every time I had a basket of clean onions I took them to the kitchen. Bags are all a random mixture of, red, yellow, white, Vidalia, onions. Pantry has a random mix of the same 4 types of onions. Yesterdays evening after dinner pizza was already cooked we put raw sliced onions on the pizza, it was very good. We probably have a month or more of garden onions in the pantry. This year I was very careful not to put very much Ammonium sulfate fertilizer on onion plants we don't want spicy hot onions like last year.

[Gary350]

March 15, I planted 1 grocery russet seed potato that weighed 10 ounces it had 13 eyes with 13 sprouts. I planted the whole potato, not cuttings. It grew 13 plants and today 6/10/2024 I dug up 6 lbs. 7 oz. of new russet potatoes. There are lots of small stew potatoes. Several medium & some larger potatoes.

I also planted 1 Dutch Blue seed potato weight 1.4 oz. with 3 very small eyes and today I dug up 1 lb. 7 oz. of new Dutch Blue potatoes.

[Gary350]

This evening I planted 4 rows of corn 75 seeds in each row. Forecast is no rain for a month and hot 95° weather. I covered the corn seeds with 1x6 boards to hold the moisture. I hope this works I will wait 5 days then remove 1 board to see what is happening. Maybe I will get 100% germination instead of 70% like last year.

I picked 2 gallons of strawberries and saw, 2 mice = voles = field mice.