My 2017 garden

[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..

http://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.