Tennessee 2018 Garden

[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/

[Gary350]

Does anyone have dirty knees like this. LOL. I got some hard neck garlic today it should have been planted 17 days ago. I put my garden clothes on then ran out into the rain to plant 55 garlic cloves. I said, next year I'm only planting the major food groups to fill the pantry but that idea went out the window today when I got garlic to plant. LOL. My garden is FUN I love it, it is hard not to plant a garden. It is good to have good food that taste better than grocery store that has not been sprayed with toxic cancer causing poison. Next years garden will be, corn, tomatoes, beans, potatoes, garlic, nothing else. After several months of winter then spring arrives lets see what really happens. LOL. The more the merrier. There are volunteer potatoes coming up in the location I threw down a bunch of potato peals and tilled them in over a month ago. I am not going to worry about potato plants frost will kill the tops about Nov if there are potatoes I will find them.

There are 4 baby squirrels running all over this 60 tall tree the cats are going nuts chasing after the squirrels. Cats can not even get close to the squirrels but they try. By the time I got my camera to take pics only 3 cats were still in this tree, can you see 3 cats 1 is up high.

[Gary350]

Another limb with 9 peppers got heavy & broke off of the plant. 3 peppers are starting to turn red maybe that is an indication the other 6 green peppers are ripe enough to turn red too. I learned the green peppers are hotter than the red peppers so maybe that is why my chili powder turned out not to be as hot as I expected. I have several paper plates with peppers slowly turning red.

I was up early this morning started cutting up the 65 ft oak tree into firewood size pieces to burn in the garden. It was 95 today weather man claims it will be 96 degrees tomorrow. I can not burn anything in the garden until Nov it might kill plants so we will burn it at the camp ground then I will bring the wood ashes home in a 5 gallon bucket. I have several buckets to get wood ash from 222 camp sites I can get wood ash & charcoal from burn pits for the garden. EIEIO

[Gary350]

This is my 3rd batch of chili powder. I leaned to turn on kitchen exhaust fan & set up a small fan to blow away choking fumes & slice spicy hot peppers last. Slice peppers down the center remove seeds & vanes. I had all the peppers sliced except for 1/2 a pepper when I cut a hole in 1 glove. I also learned window cleaner has a chemical reaction with spicy hot chili juice on my gloves I need to hold my breath for 45 seconds, spray gloves with window clean, rinse then spray again, rinse then get away quick. There is a toxic choking gas cloud near the kitchen stay away long enough for the fan to remove it. Spray orange color juice on cutting board & knife with window cleaner another toxic choking gas cloud. Be sure not to lean forward & get my elbows in the cutting board spicy hot pepper juice it needs to be washed away quick. Spiced peppers stay in kitchen oven on warm for 3 hours turn off heat leave them in the oven to cool naturally 3 hrs. Then air dry peppers for 24 hours then put them in the oven 1 more hours turn off heat to cool naturally about 3 hrs. If peppers are crispy like potato chips they will grind up to a very nice powder in the coffee grinder.

[Gary350]

I kept a close watch on this batch of sliced peppers in the 170 degree oven it took 3 hrs 30 min for the peppers to be dry & crispy. If the peppers over cook the color starts turning darker & darker. This is a nice orange color chili powder. It ground up to a very fine power in about 45 seconds in my coffee grinder. This is enough chili powder to fill 1 of my empty spice bottles 1/2 full.

Where is the nice cool fall weather 96 degrees again today 15 degrees above normal.

[Gary350]

It has been a while since I took pictures of the garden. Left to right flat pod beans are loaded with 100s of tiny beans they are waiting for rain & cooler weather. No rain in a while & no rain from the hurricane last week except a tiny sprinkle. Several peppers are turning red maybe 2 more days there will be some to pick. Tomato plants are looking sad I should have taken pics before I picked the ripe tomatoes. 2 kinds of sweet potatoes & 12 pepper plants with several peppers turning red. 9 okra plants and 2 rows of beans about 3 weeks old not shown far right. I planted a lot of flowers, I liked the orange marigolds and yellow marigolds best but they died the multi color marigolds lived. I wanted seeds from the orange & yellow marigolds. It is hard to take a garden pic of clouds they are straight up except for this spot over the house and driveway. Clouds look nice today. I have not done much to the garden in a long time, planted 2 rows of beans 3 weeks ago, planted flat pod beans about mid Aug, I have done no weeding in almost 2 months, no rain grass & weeds don't grow, if I don't water plants I have no grass & weeds. If I wasn't being so lazy in this miserable 96 degree heat I would have taken down the poles in the bean patch already.

[Gary350]

I have been collecting & drying seeds on paper plants for weeks, tonight I need to package some of them & mark them. I saved some empty water bottles for corn & beans. I saved Tylenol bottles for smaller quantity of seeds but I think my old way is better, put them in envelopes with name & date on the outside. I saved a lot of cantaloupe seeds to sprout this winter in the kitchen then eat them in salad & plant 3 seeds in the garden next spring. I saved a lot of cilantro seeds too there is about 6 months during winter cilantro is not sold in the grocery store I want to grow some in pots in winter for salsa & Mexican food. Next year will by my 4th year of saving & planting my own Blue Lake Bush beans. I saved a lot of 1" cherry tomato seeds from 5 tomatoes wish I could remember the name of this tomato, no one had 1" cherry tomato plants for sale this year I am glad I saved seeds last year, I want to plant these again next year. I probably won't plant anymore Mexican potatoes. No more orange sweet potatoes 3 per year on Thanksgiving is all we need. Garden dinner tonight was, potatoes & cheese, beans & beans, squash & onions, tomatoes ........and fried pig chop.

[Gary350]

While searching through seeds last night I found a package of beet seeds. Today after lunch I planted 2 rows of beets seeds are 2" apart. At 4:15 pm it rained hard for 8 minutes. We had 1 very nice big lightning strike that looked like it struck across the road, BOOM a very loud thunder that shook the house an rumbled through the sky for 10 seconds. Garden was dry as desert this rain will be helpful for a few days. Maybe tomatoes will start looking better like they did after the big rain we had several weeks ago. It looks like soil hills are not tall enough they will be under water, March, April, May 2019. In about 1 hour water will be dried up. I'm not going to worry about it these rows will be harvested by January.

[Gary350]

Standing inside the back door I can see several red things in the garden. When rain finally let up for a few minutes I hurried out and picked everything red. Tomatoes in the bucket are yesterdays harvest. Tomatoes on the 2 paper plates were picked today. I guess we will grind these tomatoes up this evening and fill another quart jar. There are several red peppers on a paper plate tomorrow I might have enough red peppers to make more chili powder. I have learned the green peppers that broke the limb off have not turned red, they are still green and starting to swivel up. Looks like I will need to cut green peppers into strips to make green chili powder before they go bad. I have found more volunteer potatoes in the garden that need to be transplanted in the potato row when rain stops. Beans need to be picked but not until tomorrow. I bought a bottle of red wine yesterday called 7 Moons it is a blend of 7 good wines it turned out to be the best wine I have had in 8 years Monday I will buy a case of those. This is $12 wine at Discount Wine, $14 at Walmart, it tastes like $35 wine. The grapes I picked a few weeks ago are fermenting I only have enough grapes for 1 gallon of wine = 3 bottles. We made a lot of fried okra for dinner tonight. Bell pepper plants are growing more peppers & the largest pepper is still not turning red.

[Gary350]

I decided to slice the peppers & dry them it gives me something to do tonight. Peppers were in the oven about 1 hour when we started choking, coughing, our eyes were burning, I could smell the peppers. We opened the doors, turned on all the ceiling fans, turned both bathroom exhaust fans & the kitchen exhaust fan, and turned off the oven. It ran us out of the house until the air cleared up. I never gave it much thought 90% of the peppers are hot chili peppers most are 40,000. scoville peppers. That is almost tear gas. This is a larger batch of peppers than before. Tomorrow when we are gone a few hours we will set oven on 2 hour timer so air clears before we return home.

[Gary350]

Wow it is raining hard weather lady claims 6" of rain today. We already had 4" of rain last night & 2" day before that. I hope this does miracles for the garden it has been a very hot dry summer. I bet the little stream behind the house will be a river it usually peaks about 18 hours after rain stops. Rain stopped for a few minutes so I ran out took some pics yard is 2" deep in water my feet are wet now I need dry shoes & socks. No clothes on the clothes line today, LOL.

[Gary350]

Wife wanted to know if we have beans for dinner. I said, there will be if I go pick a few for dinner. Rain stopped about 30 minutes ago 1 pm now is a good a time as any to pick beans before rain starts again. I have several old pairs of shoes for projects like this so I put them on. Soon as I stepped into the garden it was like quick sand shoes went into the mud and were gone. LOL. Shoes are almost worthless in this mud. I picked beans, washed off with the water hose, changed pants, socks, shoes, then washed & cut beans. I'm not sure what wife is making for dinner but it includes, corn, beans, onions, chicken. The flat pod beans are at several growth stages, some beans should have been picked days ago they have large white beans inside yellow pods. I guess it is gardeners choice to pick flat pod beans at the time you like, pick early you get flat pods like snow peas, pic few days later you get pods with small beans, pick several days later you get large white beans. I like the white beans mixed in with the flat pod green beans.

[Gary350]

I guess I was not thinking when I sliced up so many 40,000. scoville peppers I have no use for chili powder this spicy hot. I set the pan on the patio table in the rain yesterday, this morning I dumped it in the garden. From now on I only dehydrate sweet peppers.

[applestar]

In reference to your bean picking post one above, I was reading that thinking you probably had fun out there getting stuck in the mud, losing your shoe.... Haha

...in reference to the hot peppers you dumped in your garden.... I hope the little kitties don’t walk through there and get the stuff on them....

[Gary350]

In reference to your bean picking post one above, I was reading that thinking you probably had fun out there getting stuck in the mud, losing your shoe.... Haha

...in reference to the hot peppers you dumped in your garden.... I hope the little kitties don’t walk through there and get the stuff on them....

Before I dumped the peppers in the pan of rain water I tasted them to see if they had flavor or any spicy hotness left. They were not hot & had no more flavor than a paper plate. I was hoping if the spicy hot was gone & sweet bell pepper flavor was still there they would still make good no spicy chili powder = paprika.

I did have fun in the mud. Wife laughs at me all the time she says, your like a little kid in the garden all the time in the dirt & mud. LOL

[Gary350]

I bought a $2 bundle of oriental yard long beans at the Farmers Market Friday a few weeks ago. I sliced them and we cooked them several different ways. First we put some in a crock pot with a slice of bacon & cooked them all day like we would Blue Lake Green Beans. Yard long beans were good but flavor was missing it must be the bean flavor inside the blue lake bean pods, these are pods only no beans inside. We tried them is Chinese stir fly I can tell when I bit into 1 there is almost no flavor a lot less flavor than real green beans. We tried yard long beans is vegetable stew & vegetable soup they are good filler but not much flavor I assume they have vitamins & minerals & are healthy to eat like other green beans. I mixed yard long beans about 50/50 with BBQ bake beans, the bake beans were good the yard long beans seem to be more of a filler with little green bean flavor. Yard long beans are not bad at all, if a person likes slightly milder flavor beans this is a good choice I am sure it probably has food value. People at Farmers Market say, yard long beans need to grow on a fence or poles so that means extra work for me next year if I decide to grow them. Curiosity always gets the best of me I have to grow them just to do it & see how they grow & have a few to eat & have fun even though I don't care much about eating them but they might be easier to pick than Blue Lake green beans. Yard Long beans are a hot climate bean if you live in the south & have trouble growing beans in 100 degree weather try growing yard long beans. I am curios about harvest size vs blue lake green beans. The beans inside a blue lake green bean pod adds extra bean flavor to the green bean that you do not get with yard long beans, if you pick blue lake beans before beans form inside the pods they might taste like yard long beans. I never pick blue lake green beans before beans form inside the pods they would be tiny pods, harvests small, less flavor.

[Gary350]

I don't have many grapes but it is enough to make 1 gallon of red wine. I squeezed the grapes by hand then put, juice, pulp, skins all together to ferment slow. Skins contain the red grape color & flavor this has been fermenting very slow at 68 degrees for about 3 weeks. Yesterday I drained off the juice and put it in a 1 gallon jug to finish fermenting. Soon fermentation will stop and a few weeks later wine can be separated from the sediment & a few months later 3 bottles will be ready to drink.

[SQWIB]

Now your talking!!

[Gary350]

Sweet 100 tomatoes are so sensitive to being touched when they are ripe they fall off. Keep your hand under the tomato when you pick it so when you touch the tomato it falls into your hand. It has been raining every day rain drops have knocked a lot of tomatoes on the ground. I was very careful to pick about 20 good tomatoes when I dripped them into my basket the tomatoes split open. I guess tomatoes are full of rain water and stressed to the limit when they fall only a few inches they split open. Being split open is not a problem as long as we eat them now they probably will not keep well in the refrigerator. Too much mud I just have to wait to pick other things.

[Gary350]

These 7 rows have turned into a mess. This was a place to throw kitchen scraps all summer grass grew waste high we finally cut the grass a month ago then I tilled it. After it rained 3 weeks ago volunteer potatoes started coming up. I created a hill row to transplant all the potato plants which is now row 6. Then I created row 5 to plant soft neck garlic and row 7 to plant carrot seeds. Then I created row 3 & 4 for hard neck garlic. After that I made rows 1 & 2 for beet seeds. 1000s of baby 1/2 carrots are coming up in row 7 so are volunteer potatoes. Hard neck garlic is coming up in rows 3 & 4 so it volunteer potatoes. Volunteer potatoes are coming up in rows 3 to 7. There was no soil for row 1 & 2 it got pushed over to create rows 3 to 7. I shoveled soil from another location to make rows 1 & 2 that is why there are no volunteer potatoes there and no beats there yet either. Potato plants will be a shade problem for other plants but in about 6 weeks frost will kill potato plants they will not be a problem anymore garlic & carrots will have sunlight. I have 80 gallons of compose I can put over row 6 to protect potatoes under the soil from freezing I will dig them up about Dec 30 to see if there are any potatoes. A month ago I bought a bag of organic potatoes at the grocery store today I notice eyes are growing sprouts so wife pealed 3 potatoes to make vegetable stew now I have about 25 potato eyes to plant in row 8. No more rain until Monday so maybe I can create row 8 this weekend. If I had not made hills none of this would have grown in this water. Row 1 needs more soil it is not tall enough.

[Gary350]

Garden vegetable stew for dinner, corn, peas, onions, garlic, carrots, potatoes, green beans, with stew meat and corn bread. Wow this is good I had to have seconds.

[Taiji]

Looks like a nice quick wine recipe! I wanted some grapes so bought a vine on sale at a big box store when arriving here. But forgot that those stores seem to always have so many plants that aren't meant for one's particular area. So, it turns out Muscadine grapes aren't anywhere near right for this Ag zone here in the U.P. of 3b to 4a!

So, now the plan is to dig it up, put in a 5 gal bucket and take back to AZ in a few weeks. I won't be there summers to water it, so will probably give it away.
Have been researching some zone 3 grapes for next year of course!

[Gary350]

Looks like a nice quick wine recipe! I wanted some grapes so bought a vine on sale at a big box store when arriving here. But forgot that those stores seem to always have so many plants that aren't meant for one's particular area. So, it turns out Muscadine grapes aren't anywhere near right for this Ag zone here in the U.P. of 3b to 4a!

So, now the plan is to dig it up, put in a 5 gal bucket and take back to AZ in a few weeks. I won't be there summers to water it, so will probably give it away.
Have been researching some zone 3 grapes for next year of course!

Muscadine grapes are native to TN, AL & GA they grow wild here. We have hot summers and mild winters. Summer weather is 95 to 107 but year after year average about 98 to 100. Winter is below freezing at night several months warning up to 45 to 60 during the day. We have 3 months of none stop spring rain here in TN but very dry June to Sept small rains once a month about like Phoenix. I use to live in Phoenix AZ area it might be too hot for Muscadine grapes but Tucson AZ is probably better suited for Muscadine grapes and north of Phoenix elevation about 2500 ft is probably good for Muscadine grapes. I had grapes in AZ they grew very fast 2nd summer plants were loaded with grapes I kept watching them waiting for them to be ripe. One morning at sun rise grapes were ready, I had breakfast then put on my clothes went out to pick grapes they were gone, birds got them all in 1 hour. I cut vines down that was the end of growing grapes. LOL. I saw Muscadine grapes at farmers market 2 weeks ago $8 for 1 pint that is crazy expensive grapes are $1 a lb at the grocery store.

[Gary350]

I picked all the peppers that look completely red and some that were 90% red. I have learned peppers picked green will go bad before they turn red but if the peppers are more than 50% red they will turn completely red in 1 or 2 weeks inside the house. These large peppers are labeled sweet chili peppers but they have a very mild spicy hot flavor they will make a good mild chili powder. Largest pepper is 2.5" diameter and 7" long. Plants still have a lot of green peppers.

[Gary350]

These chili peppers are very spicy hot I may pull up all the plants I have no use for anything this hot and both my Sons don't want any more. I pickled some of the jalapeno last year but I never ate them so I guess I won't have a use for them this year. I won't be planting these again

[Gary350]

Flat pod beans should have been picked several days ago. I picked a few beans but beans inside the pod are large enough to eat. I like these large white beans from the pods I wish I have a large crock pot full of them. I am going to let the rest of these beans make seeds I need about 380 seeds to plant next year. If I have extra beans they will make good soup.