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Gary350
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Re: Gary350 Garden 2016. Where is my hoe?

28 tomato plants are doing good. We have ripe tomatoes every day. I took a second look and I think there will be 40 ripe tomatoes to pick tomorrow morning. My best guess is there are about 476 green tomatoes on the plants not counting the 4 cherry tomato plants. My son has 8 plants in my garden with 7 ripe tomatoes and about 134 green tomatoes.

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Gary350
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More tomatoes this morning. 36 and about 30 or 40 cherry tomatoes.

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BU54
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From the size of that potato how big is the pot your cooking beef stew in???
Beautiful garden, love the pics but now I'm starving.

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Gary350
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Corn is 8 feet tall and making tassels. I have no clue what we will do with 400 ears of corn about the time we go on vacation. The storms just keep coming every day.

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lakngulf
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Gary350 wrote:Corn is 8 feet tall and making tassels. I have no clue what we will do with 400 ears of corn about the time we go on vacation. The storms just keep coming every day.

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Looks healthy and I think it appreciates the rain from the storms. Hope the winds don't blow you down. Good luck.

Still can't believe how weed free you keep your garden. I went to the beach for a few days and WOW, the weeds grew while I was gone.

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Gary350
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lakngulf wrote:
Gary350 wrote:Corn is 8 feet tall and making tassels. I have no clue what we will do with 400 ears of corn about the time we go on vacation. The storms just keep coming every day.

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Looks healthy and I think it appreciates the rain from the storms. Hope the winds don't blow you down. Good luck.

Still can't believe how weed free you keep your garden. I went to the beach for a few days and WOW, the weeds grew while I was gone.
I rarely ever do anything to weed my garden, I never have weeds in my garden any place I live. I think the trick is getting started right. I till the soil in the spring then every day I run the tiller through the garden pretty much as fast as it will go just to do root damage to weeds and grass and promote seeds to sprout so I can damage them tomorrow. When I plant my garden I guess all the weeds seeds have sprouted and died no weeds or grass ever comes up. We have been having storms, high wind and rain every day I am starting to get a few weeds probably the wind blew in some seeds. Small weeds are no big deal I walk through the garden and scoot my shoes over tiny weeds and they are gone. When I use the hoe I use it like a road grader blade to scrap away tiny weeds. 40 years ago I use to fight weeds and grass every day but no more. When I harvest beans, tomatoes, okra, etc if I see a weed tall enough to pull I pull it up, if it is tiny I wipe my hand over it and it is dead. So far this year only 1 time I made a special effort to weed a million tiny plants coming up in the corn rows, I pulled the hoe through the corn rows scraping off weeds then next day I looked to see what was still alive. After that I used the toe of my show to wipe away weeds between each corn stock. When weeds are 1" tall they are so easy to scrap away with little effort just walking on them will usually kill them. 30 days after the garden is planted I till between the rows as fast as the tiller will move till just to break the soil surface and the weeds all die. After that I never till again. I walk through the garden 2 times a week just to inspect plants not much to do except time up the tomatoes. The hardest thing to do now is pick beans, tomatoes, okra, onions, squash, herbs.

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Gary350
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Corn grew tassels a few days ago plants should have corn soon. Tomato harvest is about 20 lbs every day. Okra is slow about 3 pods every day. Bell peppers are slow to but that is ok we don't eat many of these. Onions are small we eat them in dinner salad and potato salad every day. Water melons are out of control about once a week I cut the vine off to keep them all in a 12' by 12' area I was covering all the vines with dirt as they grow but now there are too many vines. Twice a week I keep the sweet potato vines moving in a clock wise circle around the mother plants covering up the vine with dirt as the grow. I am letting my first bean harvest go to seed so I have seeds to plant next year. Herbs are all doing good we have them in salads all the time. Banana peppers were planted late they are not making many salad peppers yet. Potato plants look good it will probably be another month before I learn if we have a good crop.

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Gary350
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DINNER. Little Zucchini pizzas on the BBQ grill, zucchini bread, corn, tomatoes, potato salad, cottage cheese, Kielbasa on the BBQ grill. We canned 9 more pints of tomatoes.

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Gary350
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Todays harvest, 8 lbs of green beans, 4 okra pods, 2 zucchini squash, 3 small onions, 31.5 lbs. of tomatoes.

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Gary350
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The sweet potato plant is getting larger every day I keep the vines going in a clock wise circle. I cover the vines with dirt about 2 times every week to keep the vine making new roots and more potatoes ever place the vines grow more roots. Sweet potatoes like hot weather it was 100 degrees today and no rain for 4 days. 100 degrees and no rain in the weather forecast for a whole week. Not likely it will cool off or rain in the next 3 or 4 weeks, this is typical summer TN weather. I am hoping to get 100 lbs of sweet potatoes from this plant. This plant started out with 2 vines now I think it has about 20 vines, the vines much Y.

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The 12'x12' melon patch has several melons hidden away under the leaves. I have been cutting the vines off short trying to keep this crop contained. So far so good. Melons love it hot this 100 degree weather is what they like but there probably will be no rain for 3 or 4 weeks it rarely rains July and Aug in middle TN.

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The tomato plants are still loaded with tomatoes they have been producing tomatoes for 3 weeks. Last week we were getting 20 lbs a week, this week we are getting 30 lbs a week. I picked 33 lbs of tomatoes today I guess we need to can more tomatoes tomorrow. My late 6 tomato plants are starting to make tomatoes too.

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This 40 foot row of blue lake bush beans are doing good. The 2 corn crops planted 3 weeks apart look good. The first corn crop looks like it will be ready to harvest 800 ears of corn next week.

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Okra is picking up speed it was producing 3 pots every day not it is producing 5 pods per day. About Sept we will have more okra than we can eat. Potatoes look like they will be ready to harvest soon. Bell peppers are still making no peppers but that is not strange for bell peppers about Sept the plants usually makes a lot of peppers. I harvested all the onions on this end of the garden yesterday I got 26 nice onions.

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The tomato plants on this end of the garden get full sun until 5pm and the temperature is 100 degrees the tomato plants have leaf curl. Leaf curl is no big deal it is natures way to get less sun on the leaves.

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Last edited by Gary350 on Wed Jul 20, 2016 10:08 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Gary350
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Alice made crock pot fresh garden vegetable soup. Every thing is from the garden expect the ham bone and 3 stalked of celery. Green beans, corn, onions, garlic, potatoes, tomatoes, carrots, peas, parsley, oregano. It has to cook all night and will be ready to eat for lunch tomorrow. I think it will all be gone by bed time.

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Last edited by Gary350 on Thu Jul 21, 2016 10:03 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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Gary350
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Dinner was good tonight. Best garden vegetable soup with corn bread and wine I ever had.

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lakngulf
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Dinner looks great!

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Gary350
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DINNER. Fried zucchini with green beans and onions. Boiled potatoes fried. Corn on cob. Tomatoes. Pork chops on grill.

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Gary350
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Corn is ripe today, WOW it is GOOD. We had 4 ears with lunch and 4 ears with dinner along with tomatoes, potato salad, cottage cheese, squash & onions, Squash onions potatoes, chicken, Hebrew Hot Dogs. This corn crop is in the sunniest part of the garden it gets full sun from 8:30 am to 6 pm. I have 4 rows of corn planted in a 12' x 12' spot, rows are 3 feet apart, seeds are 6" apart, 25 seeds per row, 100 plants per crop. All the plants have 1 ear of corn except for 3 plants with 2 small ears each. Pollination is excellent for such a small corn crop all the ears are filled out. We finally got a very good hard rain last night and small rain yesterday and the day before it came at the perfect time right when kernels are filling out. I am going to keep an eye on the corn and watch it fill out every day it should reach maximum growth by Monday evening or Tuesday. If we eat 8 ears Sunday and 8 ears Monday and 8 ears Tuesday we will still have 72 ears to eat, they will all need to be picked Tuesday evening for sure.

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Gary350
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We harvested 97 ears of corn and cleared away the old corn stalks. The second corn crop should be ready in about 2 or 3 weeks with 180 ears of corn.

Beans are ready to pick again. I picked another basket of beans today from row #3.

We have 7 ripe watermelons that are very tasty.

We have 74 pints and 11 quarts of tomatoes canned in mason jars in the pantry.

Bell peppers are growing taller but that is all they are doing, no bell peppers all summer.

3 rows of potatoes should be ready to dig soon, I can hardly wait to see what is there.

Soon it will be time to plant garlic about 1 more month.

Okra is 6 feet tall now and finally making a good about to eat 2 times every week.

One row of tomatoes died from blight I think one of the other rows has blight too.

Banana peppers and Hot peppers are just now starting to make peppers.

2 of the 8 squash plants died, heat has slowed them down but cool weather will produce more squash.

Sweet potatoes are doing very good I hope to have about 100 lbs of potatoes when frost kills the plants about Halloween.

The days are getting shorter and the temperature is getting cooler next week I need to start thinking about my fall garden.

I am going to plant, broccoli, peas, Napa cabbage, Swiss chard, Spanish, turnip greens, garlic, beets, kale, soon.

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Gary350
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Harvested 9.5 lbs of potatoes today.

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Garden pizza, onions, garlic, peppers, tomatoes, olives, pepperonis, cheese, sauce. Bake 400 degrees for 25 minutes.

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Gary350
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Gary350
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The garden is making 20 lbs of tomatoes every day.

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Gary350
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We have enough tomatoes for the winter, 84 pints, 11 quarts.

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Last edited by Gary350 on Wed Aug 17, 2016 11:47 am, edited 3 times in total.

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Gary350
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We have 280 ears of corn.

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Gary350
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I am getting ready for the FALL garden, garlic, broccoli, peas, potatoes, Napa cabbage, beets, kale, chard, celery, lettuce, Spanish, turnip greens. This morning the garden was full of so many butterflies it was impossible to count them all. Wow they were nice I guess I screwed up and tilled the garden too soon. I throw all the watermelon pieces, tomatoes, and other vegetable scraps in the garden it attracts the butterflies. Now the butterflies are gone, wish I had take pictures.

Photo 1 the 40 foot row of onions are gone, the 40 foot row of potatoes are gone, the squash are gone.

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pic 2 the melons are gone.

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#3 the first crop of corn is gone.

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#4 the 40 ft row of beans that were between the corn and tomatoes are gone.

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#5 The sweep potato plants are looking a little dry. Last week we had a sudden change is weather it is cooler this week. The bird feeders were full of birds last week but this week there are no birds. The tomato plants are looking better I sprayed them every day for 5 days with rust water to kill blight.

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Gary350
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I planted some of my winter garden today, broccoli, rainbow Swiss chard, Napa cabbage, leaks, beats, radishes.

Soon I will plant 100 garlic, 33 celery, 40 foot row of peas, turnip greens, potatoes.

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lakngulf
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Everything looking good, Gary. Good job. Jars of tomatoes very pretty and will be some good eating. 'Bout to end up down our way = okra and peppers going strong, but tomatoes are cooking in this heat. I have 14 plants coming along for fall but no tomatoes yet. Will get some turnips, mustard and collards in the ground soon.

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Dirt Man
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Lettuce, beats, celery, chard, kale, napa, broccoli, peas, carrots. We are still having 90 degree weather and only 1 small rain in 6 weeks. It is a challenge to get the garden going with no water and all this heat. I also have 4 tomato plants 6 weeks old that may make tomatoes by November if this warm weather keeps hanging around.

Years ago I use to do lots of experiments in the garden trying new things all the time. These days I put all my effort into growing food for the kitchen table. This year I saved a lot of my own seeds to plant next spring this will save me $75 not buying seed or plant in spring. Tomatoes do good from seeds if I plant too many 1/2" deep directly in the garden so I can thin them out and transplant some. Everything grows good from seed if I plant at the correct time and soil depth in spring when soil stays wet in 65 degree day time weather.

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Gary350
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NO rain in 2 1/2 months the garden is so dry I can not get anything new to grow. It is still in the 80s it was 82 yesterday and 87 the day before that. Old plants with established roots are doing good. 8 tomato plants are makes a few tomatoes for salads. Bell peppers are making peppers not big yet but there are peppers. Sweet potatoes still doing good. Peas, broccoli, kale going good. I planted Russet potatoes 4 days ago I might have potatoes by January. Napa Cabbage looks good too. Everything else died we been gone camping 3 days every week for a month so no one here to water new plants so they all die.

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