My 2017 garden

[Gary350]

Another good garden dinner. Home made spaghetti sauce with, garden tomatoes, garlic, onions, parsley, oregano, marjoram, thyme. And 2 slices of rotisserie BBQ pork.



Potato salad with beans.



German Tomato salad with, garden tomatoes, onions, parsley.

[Gary350]

Another 14 lbs of tomatoes. Hot weather is not slow down production. I think planting my tomatoes under a shade tree worked better than expected. It was 97 degrees today, no rain in a week. Suppose to be 98 tomorrow. I never water my garden no matter how hot and dry it gets. We don't need anymore tomatoes Canned in mason jars we have 73 pints in the pantry.

[Gary350]

LUNCH........ 22" sub sandwich with, Salami, black forest ham, smoked turkey, Swiss cheese, Cheddar cheese, mayo, mustard, garden tomatoes, garden onions, lettuce, zesty Italian Dressing. I don't usually eat lunch meat or salami but this just sounded good today.























Scratch built cinnamon rolls. I have not made these in 5 years not too bad for being out of practice.

[Gary350]

More tomatoes.

[Gary350]

Not much happening in my garden but tomatoes and melons every thing else has been harvested. More tomatoes today this 95 to 97 degree heat does not seen to be hurting the harvest.

[wisconsindead]

Looking good.

Especially those cinnamon rolls...

[Gary350]

Can you see 33 tomatoes on this plant.

[Taiji]

That is simply amazing. When I look at all those tomatoes and the relative dearth of foliage, I'm thinking my garden just must be too nitrogen rich. I've got lots of foliage but few fruits. Wonder if I should lay off cover crops for awhile and figure out a way to get more P and K in the soil.

[Gary350]

That is simply amazing. When I look at all those tomatoes and the relative dearth of foliage, I'm thinking my garden just must be too nitrogen rich. I've got lots of foliage but few fruits. Wonder if I should lay off cover crops for awhile and figure out a way to get more P and K in the soil.

Don't give your tomatoes much nitrogen they tend to become all plant with few tomatoes. I give my 4" plants a hand full of 15/15/15 fertilizer the day they are planted and pellet lime. If I have wood ash I sprinkle that around the tomato plants it contains about 30% lime, potash and lots of minerals. The majority of the green leaves are near the top of the 8 ft tall plant. Most of the lower leaves have died. I don't usually waste my time removing dead leaves but this year I cut most of them off.

[Gary350]

I picked a 5 gallon bucket of tomatoes today. Close to 40 lbs.

[Gary350]

How much Chili will 47 lbs of tomatoes make? LOL. My wife closed her eyes and said, I don't want to see anymore tomatoes. LOL. I have given all the neighbors and friend and family so many tomatoes no one wants anymore tomatoes. Even the homeless shelter won't take anymore tomatoes. LOL. Our pantry is full of tomatoes we don't need anymore tomatoes either.

I have not kept a very accurate account of how many tomatoes I have harvested this year but, starting about Jul 10th 12 lbs per day for about 2 week, about 20 lbs per day for 2 weeks, now 40 to 45 lbs every other day for a week. About 500 lbs total.

Dilemma now is what to do with more tomatoes? I sure hate to pull up 21 perfectly good tomatoes plants. Next week we are going to start camping again and may go to Michigan again for 2 weeks and plan to spend about 2 weeks in Colorado. Maybe we leave and let all the tomatoes fall on the ground. We still want to have a minimum of 1 ripe tomato every day until Christmas day. I am also ready to till the garden so I can plant a winter crop, 30 ft rows of, Napa, Kale, Garlic, Chard, Bok Choy, Beets, Peas.

This year my tomatoes did much better being planted under a shade tree. They got morning Sun until 12 noon by the clock. Sun is straight up at 1:10 pm.

[lakngulf]

Beautiful tomatoes there. Is that some kind of hop skotch game on the sidewalk?

[Gary350]

Another ripe cantaloupe 11 lbs 7.9 oz. I don't know the name of this cantaloupe yet, I am sure there is a tag somewhere under all those vines. Sooner or later I will find the tag maybe not until frost kills the vines 1st week of Nov.



A large bowl of cantaloupe ready for the refrigerator.



Seeds are easy to save put them in water wiggle the inside stuff the seeds fall to the bottom of the pot. Seeds make very good sprouts that you can eat on a sandwich or in salads. Put a few seeds inside a quart jar with screen wire over the top. Put water in the jar then dump it out 4 times a day, breakfast, lunch, dinner, bedtime. In 6 or 7 days the jar will be packed full of green sprouts they have a little bit of a nut flavor.



This inside stuff looks good. I wonder if there is a good way to eat it?

[Gary350]

WOW this cantaloupe is good, they are always better the second day in the refrigerator. I have always liked ripe cantaloupe much better than ripe watermelon but 25 years ago before I learned how to grow a garden with no weeds I could never grow good melons. These are easy to grow in a 12 foot circle I have 4 plants about 4 feet apart keep turning the vines so they stay in the circle, cut the vines short it is less work. I went to the kitchen to get a few bits of melon before bed and could not stop, I think I ate 2 lbs of melon. LOL.

[Gary350]

I harvested another cantaloupe before dinner. No pictures, weight about 9 lbs. I sliced it, put it in a large bowl, put it in the refrigerator. It will be a lot sweeter and better flavor after 2 days in the refrigerator if it lasts that long. It took us 2 days to eat the last melon. 5 more melons in the garden getting very close to being ripe.

There is a very large watermelon in the garden about 2 days from being ripe. There R about 20 smaller melons hiding under the leaves. Wow when all those get ripe it is going to be a nightmare to try to eat all the ripe melons. Did anyone every try to eat a whole melon every day all by yourself?

3 years ago I had 28 watermelons, there was a ripe melon just about every day for a month.

[Gary350]

This melon looks like it should be ready to harvest any day now. The bottom is still white, I check it every day. I'm not sure my scales will weigh this I might need to weigh it on bathroom scales. I hope it tastes good as it looks. Melon diameter is larger than this 5 gallon bucket. 5 gallons of water weighs 40 lb. how much do think the melon weighs?

[wisconsindead]

Nice!

[Gary350]

After eating a whole cantaloupe every day for a week it is nice to finally have a ripe watermelon. This weighs exactly 17lbs. Scrap is about 65% compared to a cantaloupe that is about 50%. The bottom of the melon turned yellow yesterday, I waited 1 more day and harvested the melon. It is a very good watermelon, good flavor and plenty sweet. Tomorrow we will see if it gets riper in the refrigerator like cantaloupes do. This is the 1st watermelon this year.

[ElizabethB]

Gary,

I love your garden eating pics.

What about the lovely kitties?

[Gary350]

UPDATE. It is now 9:40 pm the watermelon has been getting cold in the refrigerator for 3 hours. I decided to go check see how the melon tastes cold. 1 bite turned into 2, 3, 4 and many more. I can't believe I ate 1/3 of a water melon 30 minutes before bed. LOL. Darn.....I will be getting out of bed all night going to the bathroom. It is so good I just could not stop eating.

The little cats all got a good home I wish I could have kept them all. We kept 1 we need another cat for the garden. I sure do miss my cat she was 14 years old she died in June.

[Gary350]

Hot summer heat has put the slow down on the tomato plants they look 95% dead as they usually do this time of the year. I usually do nothing if most of the plants die I don't care all we really want is 2 ripe tomatoes every day until Christmas day. This year I did something different, I cut off everything that looked dead leaving the main stump of the tomato plant. I tilled all the dead stuff into the soil. Now the stump has grown new leaves and in a few more weeks it will have ripe tomatoes. With cooler weather on the way tomato plants will start producing lots of tomatoes again until we start having 40 degree temperatures at night. My whole garden is the compose I throw dead stuff down where every it happens to be then till in into the soil that is much less work than a compose pile, been there done that.

[Gary350]

I think this is #7 or #8 cantaloupe I lost count. Refrigerator is full of watermelon we don't have room for cantaloupe. I have a pineapple that needs to be cut and another cantaloupe that needs to be harvested and a honey dew melon that may need to be cut Monday. Everyone around here was helping to eat the melons at first but now no one wants anymore. It is very good but now that I have to eat it all by myself I am about ready to start giving melon away. We need to have a melon eating party. I learned that Red Wine does not go good with melon. LOL. 9 lbs 9.8 ounces.

[Gary350]

This is my idea of a compose. Sprinkle kitchen scraps between the rows then till them in. I don't do compose piles anymore too much work, been there done that, now I know better. This is, water melon, cantaloupe, pineapple scraps. Butterflies love this I will not till it in for a week or so. Butterflies will be all over this tomorrow.

[Gary350]

I harvested 2 more cantaloupes and 1 more watermelon yesterday. I gave them all to my son, we are over dosed on melons. It is not easy to eat a whole cantaloupe and watermelon every day. I have been feeling the effected of eating too much sugar, I ate no melon yesterday and I feel much better today. There are 7 more cantaloupe in the garden and 12 more water melons about to become ripe soon. It is about time to pull up all the melon vines I have cold weather crops I want to plant. If I plant melons next year I may only grow 1 plant, ripe melons need to come less often 1 a week would be about right. I planted 4 cantaloupes and 4 watermelons they both came in a plant tray of 4 plants. 1 of the watermelon plants must have bad DNA all the melons on that vine split open when they are about 7" diameter none of the melons are ripe. Knowing that 1 plant can produce all bad melons it is best to never grow only 1 plant if all the melons are bad it may be to late in the season to replant. The big 40 lb watermelon is still not ripe I check it every morning and every evening.

[applestar]

Are you freezing any to eat later? When my kids were little, I bought a melon baller tool and dipped the melon balls in simple syrup then froze them individually on cookie sheet, then freezer bagged them. My kids loved to eat them as snack. I also made "adult" versions soaked in something... I can't remember what.

The frozen melons are also good for making smoothies.

[Gary350]

38 lb garden water melon. I bet your can't eat one. It is a good thing we have 3 camper trailers that all have a small refrigerator 4 bowls of watermelon will not fit in the house refrigerator. Looks like I need to take 2/3 of this over to my 2 Sons tomorrow. I wish we could freeze some but the freezer is full with, corn on the cob, green beans, yellow squash, zucchini, discount meat, and other things.

[Gary350]

Another 1

[Gary350]

Here is the story on the 38 lb watermelon. Every time we ate a cantaloupe & watermelon there was a lot of juice left over. I saved the juice then poured it on the roots of the same watermelon plant every day. I poured the juice of 5 watermelons and 8 cantaloupes on the same watermelon plant. This was an experiment to see if the plant would take in the sugar water. This melon is so sweet it is like sticking your tongue in a bowl of sugar. Now that the melon is cold from being in the refrigerator it is hard to believe the melon could have gotten better but it taste better than before. I wish you could all taste this watermelon it is awesome, totally amazing good flavor, the best flavor and sweetest melon I have ever tasted, I am totally freaked out how good & sweet this melon is.

[Gary350]

Today was the solar eclipse. I saw the solar eclipse once before 1984 that was 34 years ago. Today was no different, I remember the strange light as it gets dark the sky is still blue and trees still make shadows on the grass. The sun is several times brighter than a full moon when it is dark. It was very interesting to see I took pictures. 1000s of cicadas were buzzing in the trees they all stopped buzzing when it got dark then started buzzing again when it got light again. Notice how the grass color changes from green in first picture to a lighter color with less and less sunlight then green again in the last picture.

[Gary350]

India Chicken for dinner was very good.



Boil Fried potatoes were good too.



Kale salad with broccoli was very good.



I cut my tomato plants back so they are only 3 ft tall they grew new leaves very quick. Now they will turn into a bush and have a lot more tomatoes before November frost. .

[Gary350]

Another watermelon. I have lost track of how many watermelons we have harvested. I am guessing we are getting close to 20. I have learned, when the melon is yellow on bottom wait 5 more days then harvest it, it will be sweet as sugar. I am getting good at slicing melons I have had a lot of practice this summer. Wife and I ate about 10 pieces each as I cut the melon hoping it would all fit into 1 large bowl. We never even got close to making it fit into 1 bowl but we had fun trying. LOL.

[applestar]

Looks so yummy! My little watermelons and melons are going to be sad comparison, but I enjoy yours vicariously.

What are you doing with all the scraps? Are you putting them out in the garden paths then tilling them in like you mentioned before? With all the sugars and organic matter, those will add tons of fertility to the soil. Potassium too for sure. I wonder what else?

Are you using the watermelon rind at all? Pickled or sautéed, soups/stews ... or I've even read about juicing them for antioxidant called citruline.

...I've been putting my small(er) contributions to the vermicomposter (worms love melons and squash) and the enclosed compost bin...

[Gary350]

Looks so yummy! My little watermelons and melons are going to be sad comparison, but I enjoy yours vicariously.

What are you doing with all the scraps? Are you putting them out in the garden paths then tilling them in like you mentioned before? With all the sugars and organic matter, those will add tons of fertility to the soil. Potassium too for sure. I wonder what else?

Are you using the watermelon rind at all? Pickled or sautéed, soups/stews ... or I've even read about juicing them for antioxidant called citruline.

...I've been putting my small(er) contributions to the vermicomposter (worms love melons and squash) and the enclosed compost bin...

I put all the scraps in the garden for the butterflies and birds. Yesterday I sat under the shade tree and watched the butterflies for a while. There are lots of large orange butterflies, lots of large black butterflies with blue color around the edge of their wings. I see a lot of big yellow butterflies and 2 types of small butterflies yellow color and white color. Butterflies are a bit funny I try to get close enough to take a good picture they all turn and look at me, if I get too close they all fly away. I try to sneak up on them, soon as they all turn to look at me I stop. I tried to walk around in a circle keeping my distance all the butterflies turn and keep there eyes on me as I walk around trying to get behind them. LOL. If I take 1 step closer they all fly away then return soon as I walk away. LOL. Butterflies are pretty smart. Butterflies love all fruit I try to put it in the garden with the fruit side up for them to eat.

I am not making pickles with the rind, we are not a big fan of pickles. What few pickles we eat we buy at the grocery store. I bought 3 large jars of Bread & Butter pickles 2 weeks ago chopped them all into relish with the food processor then put it back into the pickle jars. Sweet relish is good for, coleslaw, potato salad, bean salad, hot dogs, chicken salad, and other things. A few months ago I was remembering as a kid how good the house smelled when grandmother make a large 8 gallon crock of bread & butter pickles, that makes me want to make pickles just to make the house smell good. I remember how much work it was grandmother collected all the small bite size cucumbers every morning and put them in the crock for a month until it was full then it had to set for a very long time before they were ready to put in jars. Us grand kids use to sneak around and eat pickles right out of the 8 gallon stone crock, grandmother use to tell us to get away there won't be any pickles left to put in jars. 15 years later grandmother told me, I never cared if you kids ate the pickles if I yelled at you to get away that made you kids all want to return to eat more pickles when I was not watching. LOL

Soon as the butterflies and birds are finished with the scraps I till them into the soil.

[xtron]

everything you wanted to know about using watermelon rind...and some things you didn't want to know..

https://www.watermelonrind.com/

[Gary350]

Are you freezing any to eat later? When my kids were little, I bought a melon baller tool and dipped the melon balls in simple syrup then froze them individually on cookie sheet, then freezer bagged them. My kids loved to eat them as snack. I also made "adult" versions soaked in something... I can't remember what.

The frozen melons are also good for making smoothies.

We have frozen several zip lock bags of water melon. After freezing it I removed 1 bag a few days later to see how it did. It took 5 hours for frozen melon to thaw enough to be eaten. We were both worried melon would be a blob of mush after it thawed. Freezing fruit is an old wine makers trick to make juice run out on its own when it thaws. applestar, you asked what is the name of the cantaloupe I planted, I found the tag in the garden today, APHRODITE melons.

[applestar]

Thanks! Quick search showed Aphrodite is a hybrid cantaloupe that looks like pretty much available from the major seed catalogs. Sweet fruit as you have reviewed already. Shorter vines save space and fusarium and powdery mildew resistant according to descriptions. Sounds good! I might try growing some next year.

[Gary350]

I found this spider web at the edge of the garden. Click the photo it gets larger. A yellow butterfly came very close to getting caught in this trap. I don't see Mr. Spider anywhere?

[Gary350]

This is an Old recipe that my Grandmother and Mother both use to make on low heat in a pot on the stove. I cooked mine in a crock pot. This is very good. There are many variations of this recipe. My mother use to call this, Meat with mash potato gravy. Mash potato gravy is what makes this so different and GOOD.

4 cube steaks in the crock pot. You can also use smoked ham hocks, or chicken.
1 quart of ripe garden tomatoes pureed to turn skins & seeds to liquid.
1 large onion diced.
10 cloves of garlic.
1 bay leaf
Cook about 3 hours or until meat is tenderized by the acid in the tomatoes. When meat is tender crumble into smaller pieces.

In the mean time while this cooks make mashed potatoes from 2 medium potatoes then set aside.

When meat is tender stir in 2 tablespoons of flour and 1 69¢ pack of Onion Soup Mix for flavor.

Stir in 1 can of Lima beans 16 ounce can.

Stir in all the mash potatoes to thicken the juices and make a nice gravy. If gravy is too thick add chicken broth.

Add black pepper and salt to taste.

Put a thick slice of home made bread or a slice of corn bread on the dinner plate then spoon the, mash potato gravy, vegetables, meat, over the bread. Enjoy.

Optional, you can add different kinds of beans or several kinds of beans or carrots or what ever you like, turnips are very popular up north in Michigan. You can also throw in a whole chili pepper to give it a bit of a spicy taste. If I were cooking only for me I would throw in several chili peppers. My Mother loved onions she would always put 2 large onions in this plus enough hot peppers it will burn your mouth. This is one of those dinners where the cook gets to make it to suit their own taste. LOL.

WE had this for dinner I forgot to take a picture. I will get a photo tomorrow if we have it for dinner. Wife does not like to eat things 2 days in a row so it might be a couple of days before I can get photos. I might have this for bedtime snack this is my kind of food.

[Gary350]

This is my garden layout for next year 2018 garden. My garden is 35'x60' long. Rows 1 to 6 are 18' long rows there is tree over there with lots of tree roots. Rows 1 to 5 will be in full at 1 pm until dark this is very good for onions and tomatoes.

Row 1 to 3 are 6 tomatoes per row plus 1 bell pepper at the end of each row.

Row 4 & 5 is a wide 3' bed or onions 18' long. It will be in full shade 1pm with no HOT evening sun to make them bolt.

Rows 6 & 7 is a wide row of garlic & scallions they will be in shade about 1:30pm.

Row 7 the last 1/2 of this row is squash.

Row 8,9,10 is a wide row of 3 cantaloupe plants 18" long.

Row 8 last 1/2 if this row is Kale.

Row 9,10 last 1/2 of these row is sweet potatoes, should bet about 75 lbs of potatoes from 3 plants.

Row 11,12,13 is a wide row of 3 watermelons plants 18" long.

Row 11,12,13 last 18' of these rows are okra for seeds only I hope to get 30 lbs of okra seeds to eat in soup like beans.

Row 14,15 is a wide row of white potatoes. I hope to get 200 lbs of potatoes or more.

Row 16 to 21 is 216 corn seeds spaced 12" with 6 bean seeds between all the corn plants to provide nitrogen & a small bean crop. This will actually probably be more green beans than we need + seeds to plant later + dried beans for soup.

[Taiji]

Looks like a great well thought out layout. I suppose I would do well to pay more attention to layout. My method is mostly, let's see, put that here last year, this year I'll put it over there...

Those are some prime melons. About how many would you say you get from one plant?