My 2017 garden

[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?

[Gary350]

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?

A few years ago I got 28 watermelons from 3 plants. This year I did not keep very good count about 20 watermelons up to now and 9 more in the garden from 4 plants. Cantaloupe did very well too, I started with 4 plants 1 plant died they produced a lot of melons about 18 melons. At 1 time we were getting 1 ripe melon every day that is too many melons too soon. I had to give a lot of melons away. I think it would be best to plant 1 melon plant about every 3 weeks for a total of 3 to 4 plants so you don't get so many ripe melons so close together. At first 1 ripe melon every other day was nice but after eating 8 melons 1 melon a week was all we wanted.

[Gary350]

Melons have all died from 5 days of rain from Hurricane Harvey and colder weather. We have 1 more very good sweet 15 lb melon to eat.

[SQWIB]

Sorry about your melon plants

[applestar]

Wow that's a a bummer! Well, you did have a good run though....

It seems like melons are difficult to grow where it is humid and wet, even for disease resistant hybrids.

[Gary350]

My plants are loving all this rain and cool weather from the 2 hurricanes. I went to the garden in the rain to check things out and take pictures.

Bell Pepper plants are all loaded with peppers. We could have stir fry tonight if we want but we will wait another week for these to get larger then it will keep us busy finding new ways to eat peppers every day for the next 2 months unless hot weather returns again. It is too early to be having 62 degree weather and rain every day it is usually in the 80s.









There are several volunteer potatoes in the garden, they are doing better than the 5 plants that I planted a month ago. Next year I am will save all the small spring garden potatoes smaller than 1" just so I have potatoes to plant in FALL. Frost is only 2 months away I may need to cover the plants in November with storm windows I have stacked out back.







These are the puny potatoes I planted a month ago, 3 of them died. 95 degrees is too hot to be plants potatoes.



The blue kale is looking very good, I need to make a kale salad for dinner tonight. These plants were planted in April they survived the hot summer 98 degree weather now they are doing better.





Both small onion crops were looking very sickly during hot weather tops dried up and died now they are doing much better. We used up the last of the harvested onions yesterday these onions can stay where they are we can harvest them as we need them.





Volunteer Bok Choy are doing better than the row I planted very soon these 2 plants will be ready to harvest



Here we have Napa cabbage on the left and Bok Choy on the right. Napa was planted too soon it was too hot for it maybe it will make cabbage heads now that it has gotten cooler. Bok Choy was planted in hot weather too it has not been doing very well until now.



I planted sunflower seeds in this row. It will never make flowers but soon it will make a nice dinner salad. Soon as plants get a little taller I will cut them all off and we will have them for dinner. This is a little bit easier to grow than sprouts in mason jars mother nature does all the work. This works very well with other seeds I have a lot of, watermelon seeds, cantaloupe seeds, shelled beans, and more sunflower seeds.



This is my new row of 7 tomato plants started from seed about August 15. I will cover these plants with storm windows in November to protect them from frost we hope to have tomatoes for Christmas dinner. Sometimes we have killer freeze before Christmas and sometimes not until January.



Rhubard it is doing much better growing in larger well drained pots. My biggest problem is finding a permanent location for these. They are in the way in the garden. They might do good planted like bushes along the side of the house or around the mail box next to the road.

[Gary350]

Garden food on the table every day, that is what the garden is all about. I had to have 1 more serving of corn & beans.





Cabernet Sauvignon with a Chocolate Chocolate chip cup cake. Yummy.

[applestar]

Nice! Since you willingly eat your vegetables, I guess you won't need to do this, but I make chocolate muffins and sneak in shredded zucchini, green beans, etc..... Baked goods are also good with a bit of lavender flowers in them, though they are obvious. My DD's will comment that I put lavender in there "again" but *still* enjoy them. I think of them like treasured bites. But too much can be too intense so be careful if you try.

[Gary350]

Nice! Since you willingly eat your vegetables, I guess you won't need to do this, but I make chocolate muffins and sneak in shredded zucchini, green beans, etc..... Baked goods are also good with a bit of lavender flowers in them, though they are obvious. My DD's will comment that I put lavender in there "again" but *still* enjoy them. I think of them like treasured bites. But too much can be too intense so be careful if you try.

applestar that is funny, I use to do that when the kids were little they were fussy about some foods like carrots. We always had garden vegetables on the table the kids were use to having vegetables and liked them but certain vegetables they did not like very much. The kids did not like meat loaf so we made it into hamburger shapes they would eat them on a Bun like a hamburger and never complain just because it was a different shape. LOL. The kids never complained about hamburgers so we chopped up carrots and other things to mix into the hamburger and they ate them. The kids loved Chili so after chili was finished put some of the juice in the blender with a few vegetables puree the vegetables then pour it back into the Chili the kids ate it right up. LOL. Zucchini is good in cake, cookies, muffins, pancakes, corn bread, and other things. Green beans turn pancakes & waffles green but it can't be seen if you add Chocolate. We learned to make sweet potato casserole and carrot casserole with brown sugar the kids ate it up they loved it. You can add a lot of vegetables to sweet potato casserole as long as you don't change the color very much kid eat it. The kids always liked vegetable soup too.

I still do that sometimes it makes certain foods better. Zucchini makes, cake, muffins, cookies, short breads, soft & it stays moist. Leave out the oil add zucchini it is much healthier. I like to cook in winter and experiment with food. Last winter I found a lentil soup recipe after it was cooked the recipe says, put the whole container of soup into the kitchen bender or food processor and puree the whole thing into liquid. Well I tasted the soup before I did that and decided the soup is not very good so what will it hurt to turn it all into liquid. Wow I was completely amazed the soup was 20 times better after turning it to liquid, I would have never guessed that would make it better.

I don't make as much bread as I use to but I like putting things in bread. Oatmeal and Malted Barley are both very good in bread. I bought a 1 lb bag of L60 Malted Barley at the local beer making store chopped it a little bit in the food process added it to my French bread recipe plus 1/4 cup oatmeal and wow that was good. I went back to the beer store and bought L120 Malted Barley and put that is bread it was even better. Sometimes I put ground up granola cereal, seeds, nuts, in bread it is good.

[Gary350]

3 Bean Chili. I used up the last of the garden onions, 1 quart of tomatoes and 8 cloves of garlic. It is plenty good I had 3 bowls for dinner.

[Gary350]

94 ears of Dry Corn, we can eat this same as dry beans. I am trying new things this year. I notice when I pick sweet corn early kernels are small and sweet but let corn grow and dry out seeds are much larger so there is a larger food quantity. We should be able to soak dry corn in water all night just like soaking dry beans then cook it the next day to eat. Most of this corn will go into, stews and vegetable soup they need to cook several hours anyway so this should re hydrate the corn. I am not sure what type corn grocery store corn meal is made from so I will make my own dry sweet corn meal and see how it compares. I need to buy an old hand crank corn sheller. Advantage to dry corn, easier than Canning in Mason jars, easier than freezing, larger food quality. I think we will have about 35 lbs of shelled dry corn, just have to wait and see. Wife likes yellow corn maybe next year we will try bi color corn sweet corn or white sweet corn.

[xtron]

store bought corn meal is usually plain old field corn, same as is fed to livestock.
I grow reid's yellow dent and grind it with a wonder mill jr. it's a bit of work, but well worth it as fresh ground corn makes the best tasting corn bread.
if you want to make corn tortillas, you can nixtillate the corn....make it into hominy. there are instructions on the net...it's a bit involved and some time consuming, but a skill worth having. the hominy is then dried and ground into masa herania , which can then be used to make tortillas. nixtillated corn is more digestable than plain ground corn.

[Gary350]

I forgot how easy it is to shell a few ears of corn by hand the way my Grandfather showed me 55 years ago. We have 36 lbs of shelled corn.

[Gary350]

LOOK what I found on ebay for $15 this is the same grain grinder that Northern Tool sells for $50 plus sales tax.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/New-Grinder-Cor ... 2511910543

[Gary350]

We picked a few peppers today.



Sliced them and put them in the freezer.



I tilled the garden today trying to get it ready for a few fall crops and spring crops. Bell peppers are doing much better in this cool weather, 7 new tomato plants are doing better than the remaining old plants, Napa cabbage was planted too early it is going to seed, Russian Kale and Pac Choy are slowly getting larger, volunteer potatoes are looking good.

[KitchenGardener]

One of the things I really admire is your work ethic and how you immediately can, freeze, dry and grind, your produce. I always intend to do that, but end up either giving it away instead, or letting it limp along in my fridge! So love your posts, pics and industrious spirit - as well as the fact that I can live vicariously through you!