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Gary350
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Re: Tennessee 2018 Garden

This is our first cantaloupe of the year. I cut it into random pieces then cut off the peal. Now it goes into the refrigerator for 2 days to get riper. I washed the seeds in a bucket of water then planted them in a small spot in the garden. Seeds will grow and become sprouts for salad in about 1 week.
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The Super Sweet 100 tomatoes have changed flavor again, I wonder if it is the hot dry weather. Bite into one of these tomatoes is like biting into a sour lemon it makes me pucker up, must be high acid. The name Super Sweet must be a marketing trick there is nothing sweet about them but they do have an ok tomato flavor not as good as Big Beef. It might be interesting to know if anyone else is growing Super Sweet 100 and what their flavor opinion is.
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2 rows of flat pod beans are coming up. Maybe I should have planted 3 rows what if we like them. Several people have said, purple hull beans are good but I have never had them. Maybe I should buy purple hull beans at Farmers Market to see if they are good. Dinner was good.
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This year we are experimenting with all these tomatoes we have.

1. Dip tomatoes in boiling water 20 seconds to remove the skins save in 1st bowl.

2. Cut the tomato into smaller pieces.

3. Squeeze out juice & push out seeds & vanes with your finger into a 2nd bowl.

4. Put the tomato pulp into 3rd bowl.

5. Pour juice off of bowl 1 & 3 into bowl 2.

6. Boil bowl 2 juice & seed about 10 minutes then pour through strainer to remove seeds to make tomato juice..

7. Boil bowl 3 pulp about 30 minutes to make tomato sauce.

8. Put skins in food processor high speed to make tomato paste.

It has been many many year since I have done this, now I remember why I don't do it anymore, too much work. WOW it sure makes very good flavor, tomato paste, tomato sauce & tomato juice.

Starting tomorrow we return to our old way of canning tomatoes, bring 3 gallons of cut tomatoes to a boil 30 minutes, puree seeds & skins into the juice with food processor, hot pack mason jars, water bath cook mason jars, pints 20 minutes, quarts 40 minutes. Cool naturally for several hours. Mark & date lids. Wife uses this to cook everything, soup, stew, chili, meatloaf, swiss steak, spaghetti sauce, vegetables, pizza, sauce, beans, more. February when it is cold, over cast & snowing clouds will be nice to see.
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I planted 2 more rows of Roma Flat Pod Beans. It is best to know NOW if we little these beans, if not I won't be growing them next year that will give me space of other things. If we like them we have 4 rows to harvest. There are too many trees in this yard only way to see the sky & sun is look straight up. 2 trees are getting cut down soon. The 40 trees around the yard border will have to stay for now. Next year garden will do better planted with East West rows with all the tallest plants to the north & progressively shorter to the south. We hope flat pod beans will be good in stir fly they will be much easier to grow that peas.
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Snake in garden, about 20" long, round head, black color body with 2 yellow stripes full body length. I hope it eats bugs. Cats found the snake & try to smell it and chase it around like it is a play toy. Sometimes cats will all vanish I find them sleeping under the sweet potato leaves. LOL. I guess snake can stay it seems harmless, I hope it does not eat the 2 toads that hide out in the garden.

I picked another cantaloupe today. There are 4 more cantaloupes that all look about ready to pick. Cantaloupes are growing faster than watermelons.
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I saw the first Red Velvet Ant 3 days ago the cats were trying to catch it and eat it, I killed it. Online says, red velvet ants can kill a cat and medium size dogs. Today I saw the first 4 wasps that kill red velvet ants. I was not expecting these 2 for another week or so. Now I have to be very careful crawling around in the garden.

I picked a few green beans for dinner, I fried them in the skillet 4 minutes. Stir fry green beans are good.

I picked 2 more ripe cantaloupe this evening wife said, refrigerator is full don't cut those cantaloupe until tomorrow maybe we can eat the rest of the cantaloupe in the refrigerator to make room for more.

Hot dry July weather is taking a toll on the tomatoes likes it always does. 2 plants are looking bad leaves are all yellow and wilted. Looks like these 2 plants are done for I will pull them up and plant seeds there tomorrow new plants should be making tomatoes by Oct.

Pepper plants are wilted in the hot sun every day leaves hanging down like wet rags but when sun goes down plants come alive like nothing was wrong. That is the way peppers do.

Cherry tomatoes that I planted from seeds a few months ago made their first 3 ripe tomatoes today. Cherry tomatoes are hot weather tomatoes so we will have tomatoes on the table for sure even if the other plant slow down or stop making tomatoes.

I picked a few peppers, the large long chili peppers taste like sweet bell peppers. This could be what I need to start growing instead of sweet bell peppers they seem to be easier to grow than sweet bell peppers. My sweet bell pepper plants have not peppers yet, no blossoms either. The long curly pepper are Fire Hot, my son gets all the hot peppers.

We have 7 more jars of tomato sauce in the pantry.

There is almost a full moon tonight. We are having cooler weather in the 60s every morning this would be a great time to go camping.
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Today's tomato harvest, 35 sweet 100s, 6 of the 1" cherry tomatoes, 1 larger tomato, a few medium size tomatoes. The larger tomatoes don't get very large in hot dry weather, the cherry tomatoes get regular size in hot dry weather. Hot & dry sure gives tomatoes the best possible good flavor. These 1" cherry tomatoes are so good I sure am glad I saved seeds from last year, I am saving more seeds for next year.

I ate too much cantaloupe yesterday it kept me up all night getting out of bed to use the bathroom. LOL. I slept 2 hrs late this morning and still felt like I needed a nap all day. Cantaloupe & watermelons sure are a treat once a year its hard not to go crazy and eat too much. I harvested 2 more cantaloupe my older Son said, I don't want any more cantaloupes I only want green beans. My other Son said, I don't want any more cantaloupes I only want the hot peppers. LOL. Tomorrow we have 2 more melons to cut up this time we cut them very small, this time we only keep the eating part, the skin goes back to the garden not in the refrigerator.

Tomatoes slowly pile up day after day filling more mason jars, 9 jars & the Canner is full & more jars for the pantry.
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Tonight we are making another batch of tomato sauce. Tomorrow morning after it cooks down we will learn how many jars it makes.
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April I planted onion seeds in a 10" diameter circle in the garden. When onions were about 7" tall I moved them to a glass of water in the kitchen window. Now some of these onions are 18" to 20" long. Cut 1 off, chop into small pieces it makes a good garnish for many things like, baked potato, soup, scrambled egg, etc..
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I finally harvested some Mexican Potato seeds today, also known as, Vietnam potatoes, Chinese potatoes, oriental potatoes. I ordered 25 seeds on Ebay and planted them about May. Weather was too hot the plants bolted. I have been watching an waiting finally today there was a few dry seed pods. I crumbled up all the pods to very small pieces then blew most of it away. The cats made this project more fun. Looks like there could be about 100 seeds. The other 90% of the seed pods will be dry enough to harvest soon. We bought a Mexican potato at the grocery store it made good, french fries, potato salad, hash browns, baked potato. It is hard to tell it is not a Russet potato. First week of Sept I will plant 100 seeds in a row then see what I have in Nov.

We have a few more jars of Tomato sauce ready for the pantry. We learned from experimenting best way to make tomato sauce is cut tomatoes in 4 pieces around the core to remove the core. Fill the food processor full with tomato pieces then run it on high about 1 minutes. Skin & seeds pretty much chop up to almost nothing. Start cooking in crock pot about 7 pm on high. Next morning 6 am put crock pot on low until 3 pm. Turn crock pot off let it cool then fill jars. Put jars in the refrigerator and wait until there are enough jars to fill the Canner. I don't have to use the pressure cooker but it holds 9 jars that is better than a smaller pot that only holds 5 jars. Skins add a special flavor the sauce needs to taste right & so does the seeds so we leave them in the sauce for best flavor. About 50% of the water evaporates off leaving a thick tomato sauce.
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We are still getting plenty of tomatoes & green beans from the garden. My son picked 3 baskets of green beans and took them home. We are getting plenty of hot peppers to give away but no sweet bell peppers yet. I am glad there are no more cantaloupe to pick we still have 2 containers of sliced cantaloupe in the refrigerator. We started another crock pot of tomato sauce this evening. Here is what could be the worlds smallest tomato. These 1" cherry tomatoes I planted from seeds are very good they taste like beef steak tomatoes, next year I am going to have 15 of these plants in the garden along with, 16 Big Beef & 4 Beef Master. This is the basket of tomatoes that we are cooking in the crock pot to make more tomato sauce minus 6 little 1" cherry tomatoes & 2 Big Beef tomatoes for dinner.
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Today we are Canning another batch of Pizza sauce. We are getting better at this, practice makes perfect. We puree the whole tomato with out the core, seeds & skin add extra flavor. Skins give the sauce tomato paste flavor. Cook tomato sauce in crock pot on high 1 hour with the lid on, then cook on low with the lid off until sauce is thick. This has reduced our cooking time about 50%.

Clean the jars then fill them with hot tomato sauce. Smash garlic cloves flat then remove skin. Put 1 garlic clove in each jar. Put 2 large Greek Oregano leaves in each jar, put 2 large Basil leaves in each jar. Make sure top edge of jar is clean then attach seals & rings. Mark & Date jars.

Put all the jars into a large pot with water 1/2" above lids. I am using the pressure cooker pot only because it happens to be the correct size for 8 pint jars. 9 jars will fit & maybe 10 jar might have fit into the pot. I put an empty quart jar in center to hold all the pint jars in place so they don't fall over. Since I am using the pressure cooker pot anyway I will use the lid too cook, time is only 20 minutes a little faster than water bath cooking.

Turn on the heat when water boils and steam pressure comes up cook 20 minutes then turn it off. Leave it set on stove to cool naturally about 2 hours. Remove lid let cool 2 more hours. Remove jars to cool on counter top then put them in the pantry.

Herb flavor is all trapped inside the jars nothing escapes during the cook. Jars get sterilized during the cook, jars do not need to be sterilized twice. Jars hold their flavor in the pantry very well for 5 years, we try to eat them all within 2 years.
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Tomato plants are loaded with green tomatoes if these all get ripe about the same time we will be busy. I count 61 tomatoes in these 8 pictures.
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Wow, everything looks great!
Very jealous of your cantaloupes.

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SQWIB wrote:Wow, everything looks great!
Very jealous of your cantaloupes.
Cantaloupes are easy to grow keep 2 vines growing in a circle, if vines get too long for your spot cut the ends off. Vines will make root in many places that adds water to the plant to make larger melons. Melons love hot weather and lots of sunlight. This year I have 2 plants 2' apart in a spot 8' diameter.
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I planted 2 more rows of Roma flat pod green beans they are slow coming up with no rain for several weeks. 2 nights ago it sprinkled a slow rain all night. First 2 rows are looking good second 2 rows are not completely up yet. The package says bush beans but the plants are all making runners like pole beans.

Garden dinner was good tonight, green beans, onions, sliced potatoes all cooked in the same skillet. Polish Sausage cooked on the grill. 3 sliced tomatoes & several cherry tomatoes. We have ignored most of the grocery store sausages for many years now we learn how good these are so we bought many different sausages to see which ones are best. This Port Polish Sausage tonight has a wonderful flavor, it is not spicy, we will buy more of this. We ate everything on the table but 2 pieces of sausage & some potatoes that we will have for breakfast tomorrow. We don't like beef an don't eat is often.

There is 1 little cloud passing over the garden, I have to look almost straight to see it between the trees. The sun has gotten low enough in the sky already the south 6 ft of the garden is shade most of the day. I may have made a mistake planting Flat Pod beans where I did soon south 1/2 of all 4 rows will be full shade.
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My grandfather showed me how he grows tomatoes when I was about 10 years old. When I was older I started planting my own garden. My grandfather always had wheel barrel loads of tomatoes, us grand kids were elected to push the wheel barrels to the house for grandmother to Can in Mason Jars. Back in those days I did not know much about tomatoes other than every spring we went to the feed store Grandmother always wanted Rutger & Early Girl tomatoes and they never staked their plants. When I started planting tomatoes 40+ years ago I did as I was showed because that is all I knew to do. My tomato plants sprawled all over the garden and soon were full of grass and weeds that were a nightmare full time job to pull weeds. I use to fight weeds 1 hour every day after work and 5 hours on weekends. I was telling a guy at work how much work the garden is, he said, you need to stake the tomatoes it is 100 times easier to keep out weeds & grass. My reply was, what does Stake Tomatoes mean? My grandparents an parents never did that I had no clue you could do that. I tired it and WOW that made growing tomatoes much easier. I had BER problems someone told me to use pellet lime so I did and BER was gone. Then I learned about organic material in the soil from Mother Earth News Magazine and tomatoes did much better. I tried lots of nitrogen and had giant plants that were a nightmare to stake and not many tomatoes. Then one night while I was asleep I dreamed about grandfather showing me how to plant tomatoes when I woke up I thought, I totally forgot he showed me how to plant tomatoes, I tried it and I had loads of tomatoes too. Growing tomatoes was a learning process for me to experiment to see what works best. I tried lots of different type tomatoes for flavor, size, best results, etc. I tried heirlooms too. I tried plants with suckers and without suckers. I experiments with plant spacing. I experimented with shade to prevent sun burn tomatoes. I tried a lot of different ways to stake tomatoes. Then I tried common sense stuff which was probably the best thing I did. What causes weeds = weed seeds. How do I get rid of all the weed seeds = till every day in nice weather or every other day make all the seeds germinate and die. How do I prevent BER = put down pellet lime before planting tomatoes. What about fertilizer = very little nitrogen & lots of K potash is potassium. What about soil = good soil not hard clay. Last winter seemed like it was 14 months long I could hardly wait for spring I was tired of TV and the Computer. We had 3 months of rain I got in a hurry and did not plant tomatoes the correct way I suck tomato plants in the mud then we got in the RV and went to Florida for a while. We have a lot of tomatoes this year but nothing like we usually have. OH well that is ok we don't need many tomatoes this year 50 jars in the pantry is plenty, in the past I had 120 jars in the pantry by July 20. Best way for me to plant tomatoes is, dig holes size of a 10" flower pots 18" apart in rows. Throw 1 hand full pellet lime in each hole, throw in 1 hand full 15-15-15 fertilizer, throw in 1 hand full wood ash, fill holes with water then return later when water has soaked into the soil. Put 2" of soil in bottom of holes then plant tomato plants deep. Cover plants so only the top sicks out of the soil, tomato plants have the ability to grow root anywhere soil touches the plant. Build a soil levee around each plant fill with water every day for 2 weeks then no more water. Plants turn into a giant wad of roots then it starts growing fast. When roots grow down below that 2" layer of soil that covers the fertilizer & lime plants suddenly turn very green and start growing about 8" taller every week. By July my 18 plants should be 6' tall and loaded with green tomatoes. Plants should produce about 12 lbs of tomatoes every day until 98 degree hot weather slows them down. Cherry tomatoes like hot weather they do not slow down. At the moment we are averaging about 12 lbs of tomatoes per week. We are having cool morn weather in the 60s the past 2 weeks now tomatoes plants are loaded with lots of green tomatoes. Wife thinks we are going to have an early winter.

The sky looks so wonderful today but I can not see it from my house so I drove out in the country looking for a place to take pictures. Click photos they get LARGER.
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Roma Flat Pod Bush Beans must be labeled wrong all the plants have runners looking for poles to climb. I am not looking forward to putting up poles. I planted these at my Sons request I will message him to come put up poles. LOL :()
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Fence posts 4-6 feet apart with ziptied plastic fence with bottom of the panel a foot or so above ground and more higher up as needed (depending on height of fence and beans) might be easier. You can use the orange construction kind if you don’t mind the color, or get green or black for more subdued look.

On the other hand, using just poles, you can pull the whole thing up with bean vines on them and break off the vines after they are brittle — it’s a little more involved to clean up the plastic fence if you intend to reuse them.

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Today I decided to clean up and burn some stuff in the garden wood ask makes soil softer & adds lime and potash to the soil. I just got the fire started when dinner was ready. When I returned fire had burned down to charcoal. Tomorrow I start again early morning before it gets hot. I have, dead tree limbs, dry corn stalks, dry corn shucks, dry corn cobs, and used boards to burn. After every thing is burned I will rake it around the whole area then till it in. I hope temperature tomorrow morning is in the 60s again it will be a nice day to get a little work done.
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I already have 100s of wooden stakes 12' long so I decided to use what I have. It took 30 minutes to cut stakes to length and another 30 to put them up. I cut the main 4 poles for each TP shape 7' long then hammered them into the soil and tied the tops together. There are a few random length wood pieces between the main stakes for beans to climb up also. Interesting thing about runner if I touch the runner on the side where I want the runner to move runners move in that direction. Runners are touch sensitive.
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Today's tomato harvest, we ate most of them for dinner. More Mexican potato seeds too.

I have another cantaloupe seed salad. Put all the seeds from 1 cantaloupe in water then pour it in the garden and cover it up. In about 1 week plants are ready to cut for salad. Cantaloupe plants have a little bit of a nut flavor.
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This is today's bean harvest looks like about 2 meals for us. Wife said, I,m tired of beans its 4 meals for you. LOL. We had, corn on the cob, bake beans, tomatoes for dinner.

My poor little table is leaning west. I'm not sure if I can save it or if it needs to go into the next fire.

60% change of rain Wednesday but no lightning until Friday.
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Birds have stopped nesting so I moved a few bird houses to what is left of this 65 ft tall dead oak tree. I have a 10 ft tall tree stump for bird houses. I moved a few bird houses that were too close to the house birds should like them better now. Winter when it is very cold an windy I often see birds in the bird houses, them must be keeping warm inside there.
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I have some strange looking tomatoes on 1 plant that are yellow & red, I'm not sure what to think about this. I hope that means they are not ripe yet or many its some type of cross breed tomato. These are the first tomatoes this plant has made all summer, 1 of 4 plants. Plants from the garden store don't seem to be as reliable as they once were.

Several tomato plants have grown 1 and 2 ft taller than the 6 ft stakes and today the high wind storm blew the tops over. That is normal for this time of the year tops would have fallen over on there own soon anyway. Tops grow down to the grown then across the garden sometimes 2 to 4 ft before frost kills them. I learned not to cut off the tomato tops all new tomatoes are only on new growth near the top there won't be any more tomatoes for over a month if I cut off the tops.

Pole beans were just starting to hand on to the poles but after today's storm runners are hanging in all directions. Runners are having a hard time deciding what to do.

Pepper plants are starting to blossom like they usually do about mid August. No sweet bell peppers yet. Nothing on any other pepper plants either except hot peppers. These curly peppers are too fire hot for me, my son eats them.

I had about 7 lbs of 6 year old okra seeds I planted 1 row it never grew. I planted another row it never grew. Like an idiot I threw the whole 7 lbs of seeds all over the garden to get rid of them then tilled it in. I had okra growing every where. LOL. I tilled all the okra under to kill it, I saved 4 plants. 4 volunteer plants will make a few meals of okra plus seeds for next year. There is a volunteer bok choy in the middle of the okra. There is a volunteer tomato next to the okra 2 ft tall it could make a few tomatoes before Nov frost.
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I was setting on the patio with the cats listening to the birds when all of a sudden with no warning it suddenly rained hard. I never had a rain come with no warning, no sprinkles, no wind, no lightning, no thunder. It was like suddenly being blasted with a fire hose. I had no clue what happened I just ran for the house. I dried off a little, got my camera and took some pics. It was over in about 10 minutes look at the water in the garden. The garden will love this.

We saw a storm like this yesterday about the same time, we were inside a restaurant looking out the window. Sky was blue with white clouds suddenly a black cloud came along faster than the cars on the highway then the sky was black and it rained so hard I could barely see the cars.
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More goodies from the garden. 2 kinds of tomatoes & 2 kinds of hot peppers. My son loves these hot peppers but we don't eat them. The long chili is 40,000. on the hot scale, I think the jalapeno is about 2500. A tiny piece of jalapeno will be good to add a little tang to a pot of stew & very thin slices are good for pizza topping & 1 thin slice in spaghetti sauce.
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Several ripe tomatoes today, some have stretch marks from too much rain. I cut all the tomatoes with stretch marks and put them in the refrigerator, tomorrow we will cook them before they go bad.

Green bean crop is slowing down, 5 days of rain has made some good size beans. I hope to get a few more stir fry dinners before these beans are gone.

Not much happening with sweet bell peppers, no blossoms either. When weather turns cool in Sept we usually have blossoms then bell peppers in Oct.

I have 1 more patch of volunteer potatoes to dig up when every plants decide to die.

Orange & White sweet potatoes vines are taking over they will probably be double in size by Nov. Nice thing about sweet potatoes they love hot weather if there is no rain for 3 months it will not hurt sweet potatoes.

A month of no rain the melons may have died. Vines are looking sad but maybe this rain will get them growing again. There could be some melons hiding in the sweet potato vines I have not looked.
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I am burning more wood in the garden all the corn stalked burned up yesterday. We had a 65 ft tall dead oak tree cut down. I had vines and dead plants for the fire too.

Melons look good, I was not sure they were still alive all this rain brought the plants black to life.

I probably should have picked green beans this evening but I was working on the fire.

We need firewood for the up coming camping trip we have plenty of oak.

More tomatoes for the next crock pot full of pizza sauce. Secret ingredient is, cinnamon & crushed red pepper.
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Gary350
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I'm still burning wood in the garden. I need to spread this out all over the place plus save some for fertilizer for next year.

I picked enough green beans to stir fly.

I have 9 okra plants, 5 large ones and 3 smaller ones.

More tomatoes.
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SQWIB
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Gary350 wrote:I'm still burning wood in the garden. I need to spread this out all over the place plus save some for fertilizer for next year.

I picked enough green beans to stir fly.

I have 9 okra plants, 5 large ones and 3 smaller ones.

More tomatoes.
Looking good.
What about making some Bio-char on your next burn?

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Gary350
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SQWIB wrote:
Gary350 wrote:
Looking good.
What about making some Bio-char on your next burn?
I'm not exactly sure what Bio-char is? I do have a lot of charcoal especially from Mole Wood it burns like Kerosene but the charcoal never burns up. I had 2 large 5 gallon buckets of charcoal from 1 burn of Mole Wood I scattered it around then tilled it into the soil. A month later the charcoal pieces are no where to be found they must turn to dust in the soil.

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This morning it is 66 degrees cool air feels nice. I am setting on the patio drinking coffee with the cats listing & watching the birds. Every morning cats want to see what I have in my coffee cup but once they get close enough to feel the heat they back away. 6 cats are fun they all want some petting then they are off to play.

My pole beans are too stupid to limb poles. Runners are twisted around each other like ropes. I have tried to help the vines climb the poles it seemed to be working good then we had rain and high wind all the vines were laying on the soil. Maybe vines are too short, mole wood poles are ruff cut lumber vines seem to hang on good once they get them self rapped around the pole several times but then another storm and more high wind all the vines are laying on the ground again. Vines are slow learners. The other 2 rows of Flat Pod Beans are making runners now looking for poles to climb. I'm not putting up more poles if they can not climb up them.
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I burned more wood. I picked more tomatoes. We are cooking more tomato sauce to make more pizza sauce. Time for a snack, frozen yogurt ice cream with chocolate cake plus a small chocolate donut. Wife made mashed potatoes for dinner with garden potatoes wow they are good, a better flavor than grocery store potatoes, a flavor I remember as a kid growing up on the farm. I will grow more potatoes next year for sure.
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Gary350
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It looks like rain 5:30 am I went to the garden and raked the wood ash out in all directions from the fire. I don't want all that wood ash in 1 spot if it rains. Wood ash contains Lye being exposed to humidity in the air it neutralizes in about 3 days, if it rains it will be neutralized in 1 day. Wood ash is good fertilizer 0-4-10 plus lime & minerals.

I found a zipper spider in the garden he can stay. He might get hungry I have seen almost no bugs this year.

My blackberry patch made its last berry of the season a few days ago. Next year this patch will be 2 times larger.
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Little cats are so full of energy and playful I decided to dig a hole to see if they would play in it. Cats were in the hole before I was finished digging it. Next thing I know 1 cat is taking a dump then covered it up by pulling in some of the soil I dug out. Second cat jumped into the hole and took a dump too then covered it up. Third cat did the same thing. 1 by 1 all the cats came did their business and covered it up. It is like cats were waiting for me to dig a hole so they could use it. LOL. That is so funny. I know from cats I had in the past any time I dig and make soft soil cats are right there going to the bathroom in the soft soil. Best way to keep cats from bothering plants make soft soil some place that is ok for cats and they always dig in the soft soil.
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Tomatoes cooked all night in crock pot with the lid off it cooked out enough water to make almost 3 jars of pizza sauce. I put in the herbs, 2 garlic, 2 basil leaves, oregano, rosemary, cinnamon, red pepper, then filled the jars to the top with onion. In the past we put no onion in the jars because wife always adds onion to the sauce when she makes pizza & other things with tomato sauce. I put 1 uncut jalapeno pepper into 1 jar I hope 99% of the spicy hotness stays inside the jalapeno pepper this is very common for stir fry but being inside a jar for what could be 6 months before we open it the whole jar of sauce might be fire hot, if so we can't eat it our stomach can not take hot spicy food anymore. We only have 3 jars to cook so they go into the refrigerator an wait. Few more days we have enough tomatoes to do more sauce then we will have enough jars to cook in a water bath Canner. Our glass top stove barely gets hot enough to boil water there are certain things we cannot cook it does not get hot enough. Wife said, I never want another glass top stove it sure it easy to clean but I wish it would hurry up an break so we can buy a good stove. We bought an electric skillet wife likes it better than the stove. This deep dish skillet with lid makes great stir fry & fries crispy bacon too.
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This evening I pulled bad leaves from my tomato plants. Anything that looked, yellow, brown, dried out, or bad spots. Then I burned them in the fire.

I found more zipper spiders in the garden this is good. It has been many years since I saw a zipper spider I am clad I have some.

I picked more Mexican potato seed. I pulled up most of the plants I have more seeds than I need.

I picked more tomatoes. Here is a photo of a tomato plant with 11 green tomatoes.
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I noticed several 2.5" long grass hoppers about 2 to 3 weeks ago in the garden. These things jump when I get too close so I have been shooting them with the BB Gun. It looks like they have laid eggs now I am seeing lots of small grass hoppers. Cats chase after anything that moves so the little grass hoppers don't stand a change. Cats are catching the grass hoppers and eating them. Cats were after grass hoppers yesterday evening and this morning they are after grass hoppers again. I'm not seeing many grass hoppers today it appears the cats have eaten most of them. Cats are walking through the sweet potato vines looking for grass hoppers most of them hide under the leaves. Cats know grass hoppers are here so they go looking for them. It is so funny to watch the cats catch grass hoppers.
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