Tennessee 2018 Garden

[Gary350]

Today I found the first sweet bell pepper hiding under the leaves of 1 plant. Looks too small to pick I will wait a few more days. Another plant as 1 baby bell pepper starting to grow.

[Gary350]

Today 4 more squash & more tomatoes. I forgot to take pics until after dinner 2 of those squash were eaten.

[Gary350]

I have more hot peppers than I can count. My son says he does not want any more peppers. I have decided to make chili powder with a few of these less hot peppers. I learned online chili powder is a blend of paprika & chili powder to get the hotness you want.
Dollar Tree sells paprika powder $1 per bottle this is 1/2 cup of paprika. My first experiment will be 1 dry red jalapeno pepper ground into powder, measure 1 teaspoon then mixed with 1 bottle of paprika to see how spicy hot it is. If I make jalapeno chili powder from about 10 peppers that will make a lot of mild chili powder when mixed with paprika. I can probably mix 1 teaspoon of green chili powder with 1/2 cup of red paprika and the green will never be noticed.

I hate to pull these plants up maybe by some miracle I will find someone that wants spicy killer fire hot peppers.

About 35 years ago I made paint stripper with jalapeno peppers, the curly peppers are 20 times hotter than jalapeno they will probably make a stronger paint stripper. At the moment I don't need paint stripper maybe 2 quart jars with plastic lids will be enough to save.

[Gary350]

Today I planted garlic & winter potatoes in hills. Center part of a garlic bulb always has tiny little cloves not much larger than a kernel of corn so I planted about 100 of those in 3 rows about 2" apart. I am not taking this very serious I just want to see what happens. If it grows good garlic bulbs then I have learned something.

I missed my change to buy hard neck garlic at a reasonable price in July now people have crazy prices $10 for 10 cloves. Walmart has a garlic bag 1 dozen bulbs for $3. If we have no garlic in the garden we will buy garlic from Walmart.

I found a dozen marble size potatoes after the rain so I planted them in a short row 2" apart just have to wait and see if they do.

[Gary350]

Purple Hull Peas, yard long beans, Mexican potatoes are all coming up.

Clouds were amazing today I took about 50 photos.

[Gary350]

Sweet 100 tomatoes are loaded with lots of tomatoes. I don't pick tomatoes until they are completely red and 100% ripe.

[Gary350]

The cats have learned to climb up the bird houses to get to the top of the Oak Tree that was cut off at 10 feet. Gray cat has been sleeping on top.

[Gary350]

Lots of tomatoes today. Okra is ready to pick but I did not pick it been busy getting ready to go camping. I did not check flat pod beans maybe they need to be picked.

25 acres of soy beans in the cloud picture. They don't plant beans like they did when I was growing up we planted in rows now they throw beans out every where like grass seed. Crop looks good.

[SQWIB]

Looking good, I'm in the same boat as you with my Hots just made a bunch of cowboy candy, and roasted polanos, have some red poblanos and jalapenos drying for chili powder.

[Gary350]

I left several green peppers in the sun, the sun bleached them white. I am not sure if this makes them bad or not. Oh well garden is fill of peppers. I guess if a person wants red peppers leave them on the plant until they turn red, if you pick them green keep them in the shade until they turn red.

We are making more tomato sauce in the large crock pot this time. We don't need anymore tomatoes in mason jars, we are having more whether we like it or not.

As usually tomato plant leaves are turning brown and drying up. I usually trim off the bad but I have not decided if I want to salvage all these plants or not. We are starting to find worms on the tomato plants that have no leaves, after a very careful search I something find green worms & brown works. If I don't find a worm I think that means birds already found it.

I need to start carrying my camera with me every day the sky was amazing again today with lots of clouds.

[Gary350]

This morning I had an idea that a hard water spray with the garden hose will probably knock worms off of the tomato plants so I tried it an I knocked off 3 worms. It works, worms are easy to see laying on the dry soil, now they are dead.

[Gary350]

It is about time to pick flat pod beans again. I think it was about 2 weeks ago that I picked the first crop of flat pod beans. Today I sprayed the dust off of the plants the construction site behind the house makes lots of dust. I don't like to water garden plants it makes weeds & grass grow too but it has been so dry a lite water spray will not hurt anything. Water made plants heaver and they fell over.

[Gary350]

Tomato sauce is finished it filled 4 pint jars. Today's experiment it 1 heaping teaspoon full of Italian seasoning dry herbs $1 per bottle from Dollar Tree. Tomato sauce has a very good flavor, the whole tomato is ground up in the food processor including skins & seeds. We have tried lots of experiments with our garden herbs this is the first time we tried dry herbs. We will see which one taste best this winter.

[Gary350]

Today we had a good harvest of flat pot beans. We had less flat pod beans last time that filled 4 pint jars.

Several okra pods today my 9 plants are getting larger and starting to make more okra.

More tomatoes today too.

Tomorrow after lunch we are off on a 3 day camping trip when we return Sunday evening we will see what the garden has produced.

[Gary350]

I planted 1000 carrot seeds in a 10 ft long wide row. Soil was tilled about 2 weeks ago. I pushed the soil up into a wide row about 8" wide smoothed the top flat then sprinkled all the seeds on top. I sprinkled soil over the seeds and its finished. 1/2 long carrots are a 75 day crop we should have carrots about Nov 20. I have much better luck growing carrots in fall than spring. I usually plants several things in the garden Sept 1 but this year I am a bit slow getting things done. If I thin the crop the tiny carrots & tops go into stew after they are washed. I hope to have 75 to 150 full size carrots sometimes I have 400 carrots but never need that many. I am out of here until Sunday evening, gone camping.

[Gary350]

Big harvest today. 3 okra, several peppers, lots of tomatoes. We arrived home just before the big rain. I had just finished picked the last tomato when it started to sprinkle 10 minutes later it was a flash flood. I love to watch it rain.

[Gary350]

2 squirrels have decided to take over 1 of the large bird houses. They have enlarged the entrance hole so they can get in. I see 2 squirrels from a distance working on making baby squirrels but when I get closer to take a picture they take off running. There is no way to sneak up on squirrels they have the advantage over me, they can see me, most of the time I can not see them. Squirrels make babies 2 times per year.

[Gary350]

Winter potatoes are coming up. Sky is over cast and dark gray with the hurricane maybe plants will start looking better when we start getting sun again. I found volunteer plants where potatoes were plants and I moved them to this 1 row. In the past after frost killed the plants I covered winter potatoes with 6" of soil and covered the hills with straw. No plants come up in spring but there is always potatoes to harvest after last frost in spring waiting to be dug up. I have not grown winter potatoes in about 15 years.

[Gary350]

Purple hull peas, yard long beans & Mexican potatoes are getting larger an looking better. Just have to wait an see if they make beans before frost about Nov 1. Cloudy over cast weather might be the biggest problem. Mexican potatoes are cold weather plants they do good in cold weather but I have no clue how much cold they can take.

[Gary350]

We made another crock pot of tomato sauce an ate some for dinner. It tastes good but so far we have not found a pizza sauce recipe as good as RAGU Pizza sauce we buy at the grocery store. The crock pot had 4 pint jars of tomato sauce so we put 3 pints in mason jars & ate the other pint for dinner. We added, onions, garlic, cinnamon, dry Italian seasoning, red pepper, salt, black pepper. We also added fresh herbs from the garden, basil, oregano, thyme, marjoram. Our home made pizza sauce is good but not as good as RAGU pizza sauce. I wish I knew someone that works at the Ragu pizza sauce factory I bet they can find out what makes there sauce so good. Wife makes, pizza, spaghetti & Lasagna, with Ragu pizza sauce it tastes much better than Ragu spaghetti sauce. Last winter we were cooking 1 quart of garden tomatoes down to 1 pint then add 1 pint jar of Ragu pizza sauce to make 1 quart then use this to make, spaghetti & Lasagna. This year we are trying to save space in the pantry instead of 100 pints of garden tomatoes we will have 50 pints of tomato sauce after the water is cooked out. I think winter is the best time to cook out the water the house can use the extra heat in 20 degree weather but wife wants the extra space in the pantry 50 jars take up 1/2 the space of 100 jars.

[Gary350]

Today's harvest was, tomatoes, peppers, okra. I am only picking peppers after they turn red on the plants because I want to make red chili powder. There is probably close to 100 green peppers in the garden I think it is best to let that many peppers turn red outside I have no place to keep that many peppers inside the house. The 3 big long peppers taste like sweet bell peppers. I have about 6 green peppers on a paper plant in the kitchen I want to see if they will turn red before they rot. Weather man said, no sun for 4 more days. I left 1 okra pod on the plant to mature & dry out for seeds. 1 pod has about 75 seeds.

[Gary350]

I sliced up 3 large sweet peppers, 3 of the chilies that are not hot, 2 jalapeno peppers, and 1 of the extremely fire hot peppers. I don't know what every happened to my dehydrator, oh well I will put the peppers on a cookie sheet and put it in the oven on low 150 degrees F. They probably will not be dehydrated by bed time, if not they can dehydrate more tomorrow. This will probably make chili powder hotter than I want we just have to wait and see how it turns out.

[Gary350]

I had 1 avocado left so I decided I better use it before it goes bad. Sliced garden tomatoes & onion makes the dip good. Home made avocado dip never turns out as green as restaurant avocado dip I wonder if restaurants put green food coloring in it. This was a good bed time snack I ate the whole bowl of dip with no help.

[Gary350]

The sliced peppers were in the kitchen oven on low 150 degrees from 7 pm to 10 pm. Oven was turned off and peppers left in the oven all night. This morning peppers seem to be about 90% dehydrated, slightly flexible, stir them around they sound like potato chips, but a bit sticky on the surface. Stirring the pieces around puts something in the air that makes everyone choke & cough that is an indicator these must be very spicy hot. I think all the 40,000. scoville pepper plants should be pulled up and put in the compose pile. I will let these air dry for 1 day I'm not sure that will be helpful in TN where humidity is near 100% every day. Maybe tomorrow they need to be in the oven again for a few hours have to wait and see.

Yesterday TV Weather said, gray and over cast no sun until Saturday. About 20 minutes ago the sun came out it is going to be a nice day.

[Gary350]

I finished my chili powder today. I let it air dry on a paper plate all day yesterday then after dinner I put it in the kitchen oven 150 degrees for 1 hour then turned the oven off. It stayed in the oven as the temperature slowly cooled. The pepper slices are as crispy as potato chips.

After lunch today I used the kitchen blender to grind it smaller. 2nd picture shows the kitchen blender grind it does not get much smaller than this.

Then I used a coffee grinder to grind it to a fine powder. It looks good and smells good, I was expecting it to be fire hot so I had water & crackers ready just in case I need it. It is not as hot as I expected it actually turned out about perfect and has a good flavor probably from the blend of 4 different kinds of peppers. Those sweet bell peppers were about right for diluting the spicy hot down to a mild good flavor chili powder. Wife is going to make chili soon so we will test it 1/2 teaspoon per pot of chili to see how that tastes to start out.

I put the chili powder in an empty spice bottle. I buy empty spice bottles at yard sales when I see them.

I have a $1 yard sale kitchen blender and a $1 yard sale coffee grinder I use just for projects like this.

[Gary350]

I am seeing a lot of these orange butterflies, they are every where. They like the Marigold flowers, if it was not for the flowers I'm not sure I would have these butterflies in the garden.

[Gary350]

I found 3 more horn worms. When I see tomato plants with no leaves I know there has to be a worm there. I'm not sure what all the white things are attached to the worms, maybe eggs. Worms are hollow like a soda straw when I cut one in 1/2 green liquid runs out and the worm deflates like a balloon. I accidentally cut the leg off 1 worm it has almost deflated already. I might put the worms in the bird feeder I wonder if there is a bird large enough to eat 1 of these worms.

[Gary350]

Good harvest from the garden today. Dinner is, fried okra, fried squash, green beans, sliced tomato, meat loaf.

We have 6 pints of tomato sauce for the canner. This evening we will cook more tomatoes hope to get 3 more pints of tomato sauce to fill the canner tomorrow.

Okra plants are getting larger and starting to make a lot of okra.

[Gary350]

We are canning 8 pints of tomato sauce today with herbs. Your attempt to make a good pizza sauce has not worked well yet. We tried several recipes but none taste like Ragu pizza sauce. We found some original Italian recipes that do not taste like Ragu pizza sauce either. We have decided original recipes must not taste like Ragu so now we are experimenting. 2 basil leaves per pint like original Italian recipes do not have a basil flavor so now we try 4, 8, & 16 basil leaves per pint jar. We are not getting a good flavor with 2 oregano leafs so now we try, 4, 8 & 16 leaves. We know Ragu has a very slight Red Pepper taste but not sure how much each pint needs so we try 1/2 teaspoon, 1/4, 1/8 and 1/16 teaspoon. What is that extra flavor in Ragu is it, Sage, fennel or what? We are trying sage, fennel, cinnamon, turmeric, & otheres in a few pints. The Ragu jars says, Tomato puree, tomato paste, soybean oil, salt, corn starch, onions, spices, sugar. Official Italian recipes are 2 basil leaves and 1 garlic clove. Wife adds garlic and onion after she opens the pint jars and cooks the sauce in the pan for spaghetti & pizza. We have too many tomatoes if we make a few bad jars of pizza sauce that gets dumped into the compose its not a problem.

[applestar]

I am seeing a lot of these orange butterflies, they are every where. They like the Marigold flowers, if it was not for the flowers I'm not sure I would have these butterflies in the garden.

These are fritillaries, and I believe the three white spots ID them as Gulf Fritillaries

https://www.butterfliesandmoths.org/spe ... s-vanillae
Gulf Fritillary Agraulis vanillae (Linnaeus, 1758) | Butterflies and Moths of North America


...the hornworms with the white pupae on their backs — don’t kill those caterpillars! They are infested by parasitic wasps. The larvae have drilled out through the caterpillars’ skin for the final phase - pupae. Soon they will finish sucking the life out of the hornworms to become adult wasps, pop the hatch from the top of the “cocoons” and come out. You want these wasps to help control the hornworms and cabbageworms. If you see hornworms with grey spots like freckles all over them, those have wasp larvae inside that are getting ready to come out — by this point, the hornworm will not be very mobile and will usually stop eating and stay still, barely staying alive to sustain the wasps’ lifecycle.

[applestar]

I had to go find this thread from 2009. NOTE that later on in the thread, the hornworm was correctly ID’d as Tobacco hornworm — I was mistaken. Happily the photos still show up:

Subject: Thought you could eat my tomatoes and get away with it, eh?
Aug 14, 2009

Found these Pricipe Borghese tomatoes with big bites taken out of them:

Classic sign of Tomato Horn Worm. So I looked... and found this already well-grown caterpillar!

But if you look closely, braconid wasp larvae are just getting ready to make cocoons on its back. Others are starting to emerge through its skin:


I love chemical-free, organic gardening. I don't have to do any work except to take decent photos for posterity.

Subject: Thought you could eat my tomatoes and get away with it, eh?
August 16, 2009

OK. Today, I'm feeling a bit sorry for the tomato hornworm.... Whatever I was expecting, I wasn't expecting THIS. I've never seen so many pupae on a single caterpillar ! But then I couldn't wait to take pictures and show you guys

...in the last photo, you can clearly see the outline of the circular “hatch” at the top of each “cocoon” where the wasps will emerge... I thought I posted photos of them as they came out, but it wasn’t in this thread. Maybe I did that in another thread.

[Gary350]

I had to go find this thread from 2009. NOTE that later on in the thread, the hornworm was correctly ID’d as Tobacco hornworm — I was mistaken. Happily the photos still show up:

Subject: Thought you could eat my tomatoes and get away with it, eh?
Aug 14, 2009

Found these Pricipe Borghese tomatoes with big bites taken out of them:

Classic sign of Tomato Horn Worm. So I looked... and found this already well-grown caterpillar!

But if you look closely, braconid wasp larvae are just getting ready to make cocoons on its back. Others are starting to emerge through its skin:


I love chemical-free, organic gardening. I don't have to do any work except to take decent photos for posterity.

Subject: Thought you could eat my tomatoes and get away with it, eh?
August 16, 2009

OK. Today, I'm feeling a bit sorry for the tomato hornworm.... Whatever I was expecting, I wasn't expecting THIS. I've never seen so many pupae on a single caterpillar ! But then I couldn't wait to take pictures and show you guys

...in the last photo, you can clearly see the outline of the circular “hatch” at the top of each “cocoon” where the wasps will emerge... I thought I posted photos of them as they came out, but it wasn’t in this thread. Maybe I did that in another thread.

This is very interesting. My son put a worm in a jar once with leaves a few months later there was a butterfly that he released. I put the 3 worms in a jar to see what happens they all look paralyzed. I went to the garden and found 2 more horn worms being covered with white color eggs they are easy to find they look paralyzed too so I will leave them be.

[Gary350]

My pepper plants are getting heavy with peppers and the limbs are breaking off. Today I tied some of the limbs up. 1 sweet bell pepper plant has 1 large bell pepper, wife wants me to pick it but I want to see if it will turn red. It is as large as a grapefruit.

Other peppers are turning red, some that have broken off are swiveled I hope they turn red before they rot.

[Gary350]

Today we cooked okra like it should be cooked and it tasted much better. Dinner was, fried okra, fried squash, baked beans, tomatoes, meatloaf, were all good. Just in case you want to make fried okra slice it 1/4" thick about the thickness of a pencil. Dip it in buttermilk if you have some but water will work but water has no flavor. 1/2 cup flour, 1 heaping tablespoon corn meal, 1 heaping teaspoon salt, 1 heaping teaspoon black pepper, stir well then stir in the drained okra. Stir okra & squash around so they are not stuck together let them set 30 minutes in the flour then knock off all the loose flour. Drop them into a 400 degree deep fryer. Stir them when golden brown scoop them onto a paper towel.

[Gary350]

This morning while drinking coffee on the patio with the cats the clouds were looking good so I took several pics from my yard. The cats caught a 4" long gray color praying mantis I got it away from the cats and put the mantis in the garden.

I cut up more red peppers, the ones on left side of photo are hot spicy chili peppers, I really need a fan or be out side to cut this it a bit difficult to breath. The peppers on the right side of photo are sweet peppers, there are about 10 more sweet peppers laying on paper plates that are about 50% to 80% red. Soon as they get 100% red I will slice them too. I decide to slice some peppers across the grain to see if they dry faster or slower than peppers cut in the other direction.

[Gary350]

Tomato plants are loaded with 100s of green tomatoes, many of the plants look like they are dying. I'm not sure what this is plants do this every year some plants look fine but soon they will look bad too. Even though leaves look bad, turn yellow then brown as they die and dry up tomatoes continue to get ripe. Could be late blight. I have noticed only the older plants have this sickness if I keep new plants growing from seeds they do not get this sickness until after they have produced about 15 lbs of ripe tomatoes. I only have 1 new tomato plant this year that has not made ripe tomatoes yet it has several green tomatoes that will be ripe soon. I am hoping this 1 new plant will continue to live and make good ripe tomatoes until Nov 1st.

The 2 horn worms that were covered with white color eggs at sun down were gone this morning at sun rise. Where did 2 paralyzed worms go? Do bats eat horn worms at night? The dogs was barking like crazy last night 11:10 pm security lights were on but I see nothing strange, cats were playing having fun like nothing is wrong. ?

[applestar]

The hornworms wouldn’t have been able to move far — if anything, they might have fallen down to the ground, but I suspect the wasps (like many other parasitic organisms) make them hold on and die up high. I’ve had inadequately secured tomato vines fall over from the combined weight of the fruits and the hornworm, and the pupae-covered hornworm would hang-on, upside down and never move.

In my garden, the most likely hornworm predators are male cardinals. They actively hunt among the tomato plants and hop from one to the other, spot, aim, then pounce on a hornworm. I’ve watched them do this many times from my window. Usually, the entire time, there would be one or more fledglings incessantly clamoring nearby — to the point that I would be secretly urging the cardinal to catch a worm already so he could stuff the babies and shut them up.


I had another thought. Hornworms fluoresce under true black light. I wonder if some night hunter got your hornworms.

[Gary350]

Sweet potatoes look just like sweet potatoes always look so I assume they are doing good. I have orange color & white color sweet potatoes growing in a row plants are about 12" apart this year. About 80% of the crop should be in the row and 20% should be from satellite potatoes since I did nothing special this year to make more satellite potatoes. If I cover vines with soil every 18" so vine grow roots there, there will be several satellite potatoes every place the vine grow roots. The extra roots also adds moisture to the whole plant this produces larger potatoes. Blossoms on this 1 vine probably means that vine grew roots and is making satellite potatoes. These were planted about 4 months ago there should be potatoes but I have always waited until frost kills the plants Nov 1st before I dig potatoes.

[Gary350]

I picked more flat pod beans. Second harvest is harder than first harvest I have to inspect each pod to see if it is ready to pick. First harvest most beans were about the same length 4" to 4.5" long but second harvest many beans are short and all sizes. It seems to be easy to look for pods that have bumps where small beans are starting to grow these are ready to pick. If a bean gets missed then you find it later beans inside the pods are seeds large enough to plant. I decided to snap beans this time that was a mistake beans inside pods fly out hit the refrigerator then bounce around the room so I had to cut them all. We have another 2 pint jars of beans. I put a pint jar of beans in each zip lock bag for the freezer. Wife said, 20 bags of beans will be enough. I'm not sure how many bags we have now, maybe 8. Next year I will grow a 40 ft row of flat pod beans. I'm not sure I will grow blue lake bush beans next year just wait and see. From what I have seen Blue Lake bush beans appear to produce about 2 times more beans than Flat Pod beans but maybe a spring time crop will be larger than what I am having now. 6 more weeks before frost we will see how many more beans the plants make. My Son took the last harvest of beans home and he gets the next bean harvest too so I have to wait my turn to get another harvest of beans.

[Gary350]

My 29 winter potato plants got a few days of full sun plants look greener. Today was over cast part of the day now gray hurricane clouds are moving in and it might rain. Time is short frost in about 6 weeks, I have several glass windows I can make a TP type green house over 1 row of potato plants. Maybe I can keep plants alive until last week of Dec some years we don't have a hard freeze until late Dec but that is not often. I should be able to keep plants alive for a few weeks of frost. One year a freeze killed 2 month old potato plants I dug them up about 2 weeks later and there was about 4 lbs of new potatoes in a 20 ft row that was planted from potato peals.

Rhubarb is still doing good next spring when I see plants starting to grow I am putting a 32" long piece of 4" diameter black PVC pipe over each plant to block sun light so rhubarb will be RED not green. Green makes Rhubarb taste bad just like green potatoes. I have been told rhubarb grown in the dark is sweet and tastes like pie cherries. If rhubarb turns out good we will have rhubarb cake plus 5 gallons of rhubarb wine.

Look at all these butterflies. https://www.facebook.com/charleslittlel ... 831821945/