So I guess it's much too late to take cuttings now, my patch finished months ago and looks semi dormant. Finally found some jar flats, YOU CANNOT FIND CANNING SUPPLIES, so hopefully I'll make berry jelly. Only got one jar of last year's left in my pantry.
In my neglected garden, a good portion of my blackberries dried up their berry trusses in the heat and severe drought without waiting for Isaia to relieve their predicament. They gave up of growing fruits (probably also due to not being picked diligently — I think Gary350 mentioned this before) and have proceeded to the vegetative growth phase— again with no diligent and vigilant training program to speak of, they are growing long canes and touching down to root wherever they can including in the grass/lawn pathways.
So the point is you can just ground-layer those berry canes whenever you want — they will root if they can touch the ground and get even a tiny bit of moisture. (You do need to give cuttings, separated from mother plants, more care.)
Today only 1 cucumber in garden and I lost 3 slices because of a worm. I saw hole in the side so I sliced until I found the bad area. I never saw worms on cucumbers before. Liquid in pickle bucket is up 2" higher than last week.
Lots of hungry people and I have 7 rows in the garden that could be growing something. Beans are a 65 day crop 7 rows will grow about 280 lbs of green beans. 7 double rows will grow about 550 lbs of green beans. If I plant beans as farmers do these days 6" row spacing I can grow 1680 lbs of beans in 65 days. Wife said, people these days have no clue what to do with fresh picked garden green beans your wasting your time growing free food for people. Wife is right. I still have time to grow, 560 corn plants or 200 tomatoes plants from seeds but people like food frozen or in cans. Americans are spoiled if they only knew what it was like to grow up in the 1950s, they may be about to learn or stay hungry.
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Last edited by Gary350 on Thu Aug 06, 2020 1:26 pm, edited 2 times in total.
Only time I‘ve seen pickleworms was in miniature cucumbersI was trying grow indoors one fall/winter. They hollowed out entire fruit before I realized. Several photos in this thread/post: Subject: Time To Replace Cucumbers?
Later, I discovered an adult form of the moth that had managed to pupate and mature on the wall.
...this has been an excessively hot year, so more likelihood of the more southern range pests coming up here too....
You are doing great keeping your garden.Under watch.
Garden soil is very dry it is like walking on powder beach sand. Several small melons are hiding among the leaves I started watering melons a few days ago but it needs a lot more water. I just don't have time to stand there are water melons for an hour. Big Bertha green bell peppers, Mexican chilies, jalapeno, other hot spicy peppers are doing good. Fennel has an amazing good flavor I have always heard hot dry weather makes herbs taste many times better, it much be true fennel tastes 20 times better than when it was making seeds a month ago. I harvested all the fennel seeds and fennel plants grew more seeds. I had a 2 gallon pot of Rutger plants but today leaves are gone only stems are still there. I used a sign to keep sun off my basil plant so it does not get hot & bolt. The sign keep basil plant is full shade almost all day. New cucumber plants are starting to grow larger I have been watering them every evening. I found several large white color caterpillars on my kale the leaves are almost gone.
It took 3 minutes to siphon pickle brine into another bucket to get a measurement of 2 gallons. I need to add enough cucumbers to have a liquid volume of 2 gallons plus 3 quarts then this batch of Bread & Butter pickles will be complete. Then pickles can be cold packed into quart jars. This should be a full 5 gallons of pickles that we will make into relish. We never eat pickles only relish.
I made another French potato crisp with garden Kennebec potatoes.
I am tired of the same traditional breakfast every morning. I am tired of the same traditional lunch every day too. Tired of the same foods for dinner too. I make 10" soft tacos with garden tomatoes, lettuce, sauce, cheese, carrots, onions, it is so good I have been making many different type tacos for every meal. Garden ripe tomatoes & lettuce make tacos so good I pile it on heavy like a big salad in a 10" flour tortilla shell with cheese and taco sauce. I am making several different taco sauces with tomatoes, chili power, onions, herbs. So far I have made, chicken tacos, pork tacos, scrambled egg tacos, German sausage tacos, polish sausage tacos, hard salami tacos, all vegetable tacos, saute onion taco. bean tacos, Jewish knish tacos. I love the salad stuff in these tacos its better than salad in a bowl. I never thought of eating salad in a bowl with taco sauce. This gives me more ideas like a big dinner salad in a large soft taco shell. We are having fun as long as we continue to have ripe garden tomatoes.
This is one of my potato experiments. Wife pealed some Grocery store Russet potatoes so I sprinkled the peals on the soil in a 12" area then covered them with 1" of soil. Peals have places were eyes should be but no eyes were growing when she pealed the potatoes. Several plants grew and I did nothing to them, no fertilizer, no water. Plants looked good until the 1 month drought. I watered plants 3 or 4 times all summer. Plants died 2 weeks ago. I dug into the soil slow it appears 5 plants grew the 5 larger potatoes. Several plants had the smaller potatoes. There is 2 lbs of potatoes. The most interesting thing is, peals were planted 1" deep but new potatoes were found 5" to 6" deep. I have grown potatoes from grocery store potato peals before they always grow good but I never kept track of how many plants grew or how many new potatoes grew. If potato plants are too crowded they don't do as well. Fertilizer might have made more potatoes or larger potatoes.
When are sunflower seeds ripe, I have no clue? I planted about 30 seeds but only 4 plants grew. I was inspecting them this morning I can not tell anything from looking. In the past birds & squirrels knew before me when seeds are ripe and had flowers stripped of all seeds in 1 hour. I want 200 saved seeds I want to plant 2 rows 40 ft long of giant sunflowers next year. In the past it looked like a war of birds & squirrels all in a panic to see who can get the most seeds before they are gone.
I cut down corn stalks to dry in the hot sun then thrown them into the yard to mowed them with the lawn mower but all that die was mulch away the leaves leaving stalks and small ears exposed for birds & squirrels. Now birds and squirrels have found all the small ears we left for them plus 218 corn cobs we cut kernels from. Yesterday there was about 12 squirrels running through the trees with ears of corn and birds every where. Today I will get a chair an watch for a while maybe I can get good videos & pics.
I picked 1 more ripe Q-cumber this morning & I see 7 more small ones. New 1 month old plants are starting to produce. I need about 25 maybe 30 more to finish my 5 gallon batch of pickles.
I had several ripe tomatoes in kitchen that are starting to get bad spots so they need to be used. Salsa bottle is empty so I used ingredient list on the label to make my own salsa. It was tricky to get the correct combination of, tomatoes, onions, garlic, peppers, vinegar, salt, to make my salsa tastes like Pace salsa. My red color jalapeno peppers gave salsa very good flavor but I had to add several jalapeno seeds to add some spicy hot flavor too. Tomatoes have too much juice so it had to be drained to keep salsa thick. Tomato juice tastes so good drank it. Spicy hot tomato juice is good. LOL I made another taco for lunch to test salsa flavor it is better than Pace. Flavor gets better after bring in refrigerator 24 hours.
The Big Bertha bell pepper that has been in the kitchen 3 weeks finally turned totally red color. I sliced it up along with a green color bell pepper to put in the freezer. Wife used about 1/3 of the peppers for something she is cooking for dinner. My garden bell peppers do not have that bitter flavor that grocery store bell peppers have it is the Big Bertha variety that is so good. I have several green color Big Bertha bell peppers in the garden I have been waiting for them to get larger but I think weather is too hot for them to get very much larger. October cool weather we will have lots of BIG bell peppers, jalapeno & Mexican chilies too.
I have a lot of Tabasco peppers, most look yellow & several are red color. Red Tabasco are as hot at cayenne. One of my pepper plants is Habanero I grew it only for color the multi colors are looking nice. I have no clue what to do with these pepper they are probably too hot for me to eat. I have another pepper plant not sure yet what it is I forget to mark them after planting them.
Cucumbers dying & have bugs. Not sure if bugs are killing plants or blight. I sprayed baking soda on the plants. There are stink bugs and yellow bugs with black spots. Not many bugs, I killed 3 stink bugs & 4 black spot bugs. If plants die as quick as the other plants they will be totally dead in 2 more days.
yellow bug with spots are spotted cucumber beetles. in my garden they arrive later when hotter and are larger than the striped cucumber beetles, and it’s the spotted ones that infect cucurbits vines with some kind of wilt virus. I find the beetle hiding in curled or wilted leaf, and the entire vine from that leaf to the tip would be wilted.
the scraped holes are usually leaf foot or squash stinkbugs. they like to nibble before mating and laying eggs. be sure to check underneath for egg clusters. Also bad sign if a leaf is yellowed - I think they are responsible.
sunflower head — petals wilt and back of flower turns yellow. it’s better to cover the flower with pantyhose or nylon sack — there are weevil and/or moth that lay eggs and the larvae will hollow out through seeds, drilling sides that are touching each other.
I need to start making my own salsa. I heard that people are complaining about Rotel tomatoes because people will open the cans and won't find any chilli peppers in them, and are fussing about the tastelessness of the tomatoes. They're probably picking the tomatoes green or they're using some new nasty tasteless hybrid. Bleah.
I know what you mean on the Habaneros, @Gary; I have a plant, and don't have a use for the peppers unless I make a spray from them. The first time I tried a habanero was the LAST time I tried a habanero. I cut one open and touched it to my tongue. Talk about needing a fire extinguisher...
Cucumber plants have several very small black butterflies also some orange color butterflies the exact same size and shape. After killing all the bugs I see if I shake the plants bugs fly to a different location once I see them they are dead too. I murdered about 30 yellow black spot bugs and about 9 stink bugs. All the cucumbers on the sick plants are deformed. I picked 3 goofy shape cucumber there are 9 more small deformed not ready to pick. Q-comeber plants look a lot nicer today after being sprayed with blight spray yesterday.
Ground crawler tomato plants made several ripe tomatoes today. No ripe tomatoes in cages and not many green tomatoes either.
I planted 1 of last summers new potatoes in November 2019 it did not grow until about May 15 2020 then I dug up the new potatoes today. 1 new 2 ounce kennebec potato grew and made these 14 ounces of new kennebec potatoes. There is 1 big baking potato. This is a 700% increase in potato volume. There were no eyes on the new potato when I planted it in Nov but I saw 3 plants grow up from the soil in May. The 3 potato plants grew mostly in full shade between 2 Tomato plants all summer. This gives me an idea next summer plant 1 seed potato between all the tomato plants, all the pepper plants and all other plants. 1 seed potato planted in about 30 different places should produce about 30 lbs of new potatoes.
Tuesday morning I sprayed baking soda blight spray on cucumbers & tomatoes then that evening a nice 10 minute rain washed it off. Wed morning I sprayed plants with blight spray again then 2:30 pm another rain washed it off. Yesterday we had the most amazing storm flash flood I have seen all summer. Big powerful lightning every 12 seconds, thunder so loud it shook the house like dynamite explosions. It rained so hard yard & garden were under 2" of water. Everything was so dry it soaked up all that water then 30 minutes after the store there was no water to be seen anywhere. I went to garden this morning it is like quick sand I lost both shoes in 6" deep mud. Today I need rubber boots like Applestar has. Oh well I will dig up my shoes tomorrow. There are no tomatoes to pick but I could pick a few cucumbers if I could get to them. Maybe later this evening I can pick cucumbers.
I learned best way to make salsa after doing several experiments. Put 1 jalapeno pepper, 2 garlic cloves, 1/4 medium onion, and 1 tomato into food processor chop everything very small. Next add 5 large tomatoes pulse food processor a few times to chop tomatoes smaller but not too small. Add cilantro if you like. Pour salsa into colander juice and some of the seeds run out. Save juice it makes a good spicy flavor drink for dinner. Put salsa in bowl add 1 & 1/2 tablespoon white vinegar per pint of salsa. Put salsa in pint jars. I like making tacos with 10" flower shells it is much easier than making 3 or 4 small tacos. 1 taco is a whole meal and lettuce does not fall off I should have thought of this years ago. I think my brain is programmed to think small tacos because all restaurant tacos are small and grocery store taco shell kits are small.
I picked 6 goofy shape cucumbers. I don't care if pickles are ugly as long as they taste good, they will all be pickle relish anyway. The 5 gallon Pickle bucket is 4" from the top. If plants don't die 30 more good size & shape cucumbers might fill bucket to the top.
I think what causes mishappened cukes is inadequate watering. Also, the small browish orangish butterfly in your above picture is called a skipper. Very plentiful little things.
I was finally able to get into the garden yesterday after a week of hard rain and 6" deep mud to check out this watermelon, the bottom side is very yellow so I picked it. I was going to let is set on kitchen counter for 2 days to get sweeter but today wife said, lets eat it with lunch. After cutting it I was disappointed that is looks like its not ripe but after tasting it the melon is sweet as sugar with a very good watermelon flavor all the way to the green edge. I think 2 months of drought stunted the melons it is not very large maybe 7 or 8 lbs.
These weeds have lots of beautiful flowers. I have been letting weeds grow just for the flowers.
There are poke berry plants growing everywhere last year I threw seeds all around the house and along the fence too. They make nice looking plants. We have large brown grass hoppers this year, not many I have seen 5 or 6. Grasshoppers are very fast eaters they ate a small poke berry plant down to nothing.
I have been enjoying garden baked potatoes and having fun with my homemade herb butter. Garlic butter & Fennel butter are both very good.
Lunch was, watermelon, cheese dip, sausage on the grill. I picked a small jalapeno pepper then puree the whole pepper with seeds to mix into cheese dip wow it is spicy hot.
Toads have learned to hang out with the short cucumber plants there are bugs to eat. I pulled some grass and covered up this large toad. Smaller toads were afraid I got not pictures of them. I picked 2 Big Bertha peppers. I picked a Big Bertha yesterday and we made a pizza. I am enjoying baked potatoes with herb butter too. I had fried potatoes for breakfast this morning.
Today I am throwing away unwanted seeds. No point in wasting garden space trying to grow things that will never grow because we have the wrong climate, Several things I decided never to grow again they have bug problems or low food value or we don't eat enough of them to waste garden space growing them or I decided I don't want to grow those anymore. I have a bag of scarlet runner beans that will go into the pantry we can throw these beans into a pot of soup this winter. 21 different seeds thrown into the yard mice will probably eat them. Next time it rains there might be 1000s of tiny plants trying to grow in with the grass. They might actually grow better in the grass. Early spring I threw out lettuce seeds because they would not grow in the garden but they did excellent growing in with the grass. I think yard grass was helpful getting lettuce seeds to germinate and not blow away or wash away in heavy rain, grass could be helpful for other seeds too.
I might be interested in some of those seeds, if you haven't thrown them away yet. I don't like seeing unwanted seeds being thrown away, especially now since veggie seeds are hard to get.
Wife said, people these days have no clue what to do with fresh picked garden green beans your wasting your time growing free food for people. Wife is right.
I dunno about that. I've talked with our local mutual aid society (set up because of the pandemic) and they are all-in for fresh garden produce, including green beans! They said they give away fresh produce as fast as they get it in, while canned and frozen sit when fresh is available. They said green beans (along with sweet peppers and tomatoes) were particularly desirable to their "clients" because they can be eaten raw or cooked, so they work well for snacking (especially for kids) or a meal. Lots of people who have never needed help are out of a job these days...
That said, if you've got the space, mix it up. 1700 pounds of green beans might be a bit much, but some beans, corn, and tomatoes I'm sure would all be appreciated!
As for the pest...yeah, that's a cucumber beetle. Neem oil is my go-to, and extremely effective against many pests (cucumber beetles, stink bugs, aphids, and whiteflies are my issues) but it might be hard to apply on a larger garden. A quart-size spray bottle (1.5 tsp neem to 1 qt warm water) can do my whole garden, but that's probably a fraction the size of yours (200 square feet and not fully planted out due to sequential planting, general lateness, and some failures (summer squash/zucchini did not go well this year - germination and early pest (slug, I think) issues - and I only have one instead of 4)).
I might be interested in some of those seeds, if you haven't thrown them away yet. I don't like seeing unwanted seeds being thrown away, especially now since veggie seeds are hard to get.
These seeds are 3 & 4 years old. 3 kinds of melons, 5 kinds of squash, zinna, marigold, lettuce, radish, okra, vietnam potato, savory, cayenne peppers. I threw them in the grass. Possum that visits every night might eat seeds and mice might eat them too.
It is so easy to grow new plants in early spring but not August. May 1st, no bugs, no weeds, no grass, cool weather, lot of rain. August 1st, bug epidemic, worms, caterpillars, butterflied, hot blistering sun, not much rain, soil dry as desert. Tomato seeds I planted few weeks ago all grew but bug ate them gone. Beans I planted 2 weeks ago never grew until flash flood and 6" of mud then seeds rotted. Blight is a big problem I have to spray baking soda water every day if it rains and washes it off the plants. Old cucumber plants are dying. New cucumber plants too many bugs & blight eating them up. About 50% of old tomato plants survived and doing better in cooler weather. Peppers are all doing good in cooler weather but bugs are eating sweet green bell pepper leaves. I have not been keeping up with the garden peppers they need potassium for them to load up with lots of blossoms to grow lots of peppers. Will bugs & blight kill cucumber plants before I get 30 cucumbers? I am usually finished with most things in the garden by Aug 1st. Peppers & tomatoes usually don't need much help from now until Nov 7 when frost kills them. Watermelons are doing ok but having a bug problem worse than usual. Okra is doing excellent but I lost interest in okra soon as I get time I will cut the plants down. Sweet potatoes are lost in tall grass I think they will be good nothing is every much of a problem for them. I need to harvest herbs and pick several Tabasco peppers. Jalapeno pepper plants are loaded and peppers getting larger. I picked all large green bell peppers.
I picked Red & Green Tabasco peppers, tomatoes, Qcomeburs, basil, and 2 bugs. I put a mix of Red & Green peppers in a quart jar of vinegar it should turn out like a jars of grocery store Tabasco peppers the vinegar should be spicy hot in a month. I tasted all 3 colors Tabascos, green taste like green pepper plant leaves not spicy at all, yellow & red are both fire hot 1 pepper will be plenty for a large pot of soup. Tomatoes will be good on tacos. 2 bugs hitched a ride to the kitchen 1 looked like a tiny 1/2" long black mantis. The other bug looks like a lady bug or copy cat I released them both. Both cucumbers were full of worms. Not sure yet what to do with all this Basil maybe more basil butter the last batch of basil butter was very good, wife said use 2 times more butter next time flavor is too strong. Has anyone grown zebra tomatoes I wonder if they turn red & taste good. Almost forgot I picked 2 habanero peppers I'm afraid to taste these, I hope the plant gets more multi colorful peppers.
I had a bug hitch a ride to the kitchen to. Habanero had a web nest on it, I washed it off and a spider got washed down in the dishes somewhere.
I love that zebra tomato! I guess it's not yours? I do believe there is a red zebra striped tomato out there in the world, I bet Baker Creek has some. I've had my eye on Berkley's Tie Dye Green for a long time, just never got it.
Okay, I got my catalogue. There are red or pink striped tomatoes: Pink Jazz, Solar Flare, Vintage Wine, Big Rainbow and a bell pepper like tomato called Get Stuffed. Then for smaller tomatoes there is Vernissage Pink and Pink Bumble bee cherry.
Looks like it is not going to be easy to get anymore good cucumbers. I check them early every morning and 1 hour before dark. Last night cucumbers look good but this morning they are full of worm holes and insides are full of worm tunnels & green worms. I cut out the bad parts and saved only 30% of these 2 cucumbers. From now on I put good cucumber slices in there own quart jar of brine. Row of 30 plants has 28 plants that lived through drought. I am spraying plants for blight but nothing is stopping the bugs. I need some type bug killer but not sure what? Too many bugs this time of the year. Old plants are dead, new plants should start making cucumber soon. Bug war is too much trouble.
This morning I decided to check carrots and pull grass & weeds. Most carrots have no tops it must be harvest time. I have done nothing much to these carrots all summer, I gave them water 5 or 6 times an wood ash fertilizer 2 times. I scraped sand away by hand then I could see most of the carrots tops. While digging up carrots I notice most of the larger carrots are along the edge and there are 14 large carrots in a group in the center of an ant hill. There is 1 large carrot growing in the yard in the fence row. I planted a whole $3 bag of 1000 half long carrot seeds in this 3'x10' bed. This is not what I was hoping for but it is not a bad way to grow carrots there is enough for several pots of, stew, coleslaw, salads.
I have don't nothing to sweet potatoes all summer there are 4 plants in the center of this tall grass. You can see potato plant leaves around the edge of the grass. I always wait until frost kills the plants and grass to harvest sweet potatoes, Wet Nov soil will be easier to dig potatoes up.
Most of those unwanted seeds I threw in the grass grew. There was a mix of, cabbage, broccoli, radishes, kale, seeds look at the grass picture it looks like all the seeds have germinated. This is not the first time I have thrown seeds into the grass and have seeds grow better than seeds planted in the garden. March I tossed a bunch of lettuce seeds in the grass because I was frustrated they will not grow in the garden and it turned out to be the best lettuce crop I ever had. I think those tiny round seeds sift down into the grass where seeds get shade and moisture that makes them grow better than in the garden. Cabbage family plants always over power the grass and grow a nice crop.
I usually watch & wait for peppers to get as large as they can get before I pick them but today I decided to pick everything that looks full grown. There is 1 Big Bertha sweet bell pepper, several New Mexico chili peppers and 1 jalapeno pepper. I set the jalapeno to the side. After slicing Mexico chilies & sweet bell they taste the same so the mix goes into the same bag for cooking. Wife is making stir fry for dinner we will eat some today.
Today I dug up another potato experiment. I planted 7 potato cuttings laying on the soil surface then covered with 12" of very soft potting soil inside a metal barrel. 6 of the cutting grew plants. The plant in the very center was the only plant that grew 4 very tiny new potatoes.
I don't care what people say about determinate & indeterminate potatoes, I can not tell there is such a thing as indeterminate potatoes. Every potato cutting that I plant grows like determinate potatoes. Another thing, all the claims that new potatoes grow above seed potatoes is not true in my garden. I find that most of the new potatoes grow in a donut circle around the seed potato. There is sometimes 1 or 2 BIG new potatoes that grow below the seed potato and they are much larger potatoes than donut circle potatoes. If the 2 big potatoes weight a total of 1 lb all the smaller potatoes in the donut circle will weigh 1 lb also. Sometimes 1 out of 40 times I find 1 small new potato growing above the seed potato. I sometimes find plants that grows NO new potatoes. In my garden potato plants like, moisture, cool temperature soil, real soil, full sun all day, 5-20-20 fertilizer. Raised beds are too hot & too dry in TN for growing potatoes. Potato cuttings should be planted minimum of 4" deep and maximum of 6" deep in real soil. In TN 98 degree heat and no rain for 3 months plants need 6" of mulch to insulate soil so soil stays cool & moist.
I am getting 1 lb of new potatoes from every potato cutting where it has 1 eye or 2 eyes or 3 eyes, not 2 lbs per potato cutting like the claims online. 1 eye cuttings grow larger potatoes than 2 eye cutting & 3 eye cuttings. This is probably due to TN short cool spring weather then 95 degrees an no rain for 3 months.
Passion fruit is loaded with these caterpillar worms, blossoms sure do smell nice. Melons are doing good 2 more will be enough for this year. We like cantaloupes best. 30 cucumber plants are doing very good with baking soda blight spray twice a week. Tomatoes are making a come back now that the hot weather is mostly over and we are getting more rain. New Mexican chili pepper plants are loaded I picked all the very large peppers sliced them up for stir fry & put some in freezer they are mild and sweet like bell peppers. Jalapeno peppers are loaded too I picked 1 yesterday for dinner. Fennel plants have so many caterpillars there r too many to count. Hurricane flash flood & wind was nothing 2 minutes of 30 mph wind & 2 minutes of rain it was over. Lots of humming birds coming to feeders and lots of yellow, orange, white color butter flies in the garden. I keep seeing very large yellow butterflies & multicolor black butterflies.
I don't understand why if I rotate pictures 90 degrees to upright position they are still sideways on the forum?
I need a bug magnet to kill bugs this time of the year. April & May we have no bugs. June we are starting to have bugs. July there are a few more bugs & blight. August we have bug & blight plague. My garden is usually finished by July 20 so bugs are never much of a problem. Certain plants are a bug magnet like cabbage & cucumbers. Yesterday I was setting under the shade tree watching the butterflies there appears to be about 75 butterflies in the air all the time near the Russian Red Kale plant. There are lots of small, white color, yellow color, orange/black color butter flies on the Kale plant. Sense all the bad butterflies are attracted to the cabbage type plants I wonder if a person could plant cabbage plants on the outer edge of the garden just to attract all those unwanted butterflies. What if we put sevin on all the cabbage to kill the bad butterflies will that protect the rest of the garden from those butterflies? Just an idea??? Don't eat the toxic poison cabbage & don't get toxic poison in garden soil.
Every time I spray tomatoes & cucumber for blight it rains again and washes it off. I sprayed early this morning as sun was coming up. It probably will not rain until after 3 pm.
I picked a nice looking Rutger tomato this morning. I grew this tomato plant from seed the plant is not old enough yet to have blight but it probably will in 2 more weeks. Tomato plants never seem to get blight until they are 2 months old. If I plant new plants from seed every 2 weeks it guarantees we will have a few tomatoes to eat until frost kills plants about Nov 7. Old tomato plants are still hanging in there baking soda blight spray is working great and plants have a lot of green tomatoes.
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Last edited by Gary350 on Mon Aug 31, 2020 3:31 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Join the club, my okra is being overrun with aphids and more little worms. Peas are being sucked on by ants. I will try the pepper spray since Spinosad didn't work and if not I'm gonna use Sevin.
That caterpillar in your last photo in your post above your latest one is a monarch. As for the long, spiky one I don't know.
My Fennel is not making bulbs? I have harvested seeds all summer I have pint jar full. Every time I cut off seed heads plants grow more. Online info says, plant fennel early spring or early fall. What is definition of early fall? When is harvest? Fertilizer?
There is a tornado coming our way it will be here in about 20 minutes. After living in tornado alley 43 years I have the HO HUM attitude about tornadoes. I'm going outside with camera maybe I can get another good picture of a funnel cloud. Hey look fennel & funnel only 1 letter difference. LOL
Wife made a very good garden beef stem using our garden vegetables, green beans, potatoes, corn, carrots, garlic, onion, flour to make it thicker.
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Last edited by Gary350 on Wed Sep 02, 2020 8:23 am, edited 2 times in total.
You picture isn’t showing up. I’m trying to remember — did you sow seeds for bulbing variety of fennel? I think there are varieties that make good foliage and bloom well so you can harvest the leaves as herbs and seeds As spices, and there are varieties that make bulb For use as vegetable.
A month ago I picked 1 ripe red color jalapeno pepper that I cut into thin strips to air dry on a paper plate with the seeds inside the house at 72 degrees F in AC. Today pepper is dry and crispy like potato chips so I ground it up in spice grinder in the kitchen. When wife & I started choking like we were breathing tear gas that was the first indication this pepper is very hot. Rain temporarily stopped so I went outside to finish the grind. Chili powder looks good it was a mistake to taste it. Wow this is spicy fire hot. I know seeds are generally 10 to 20 times hotter than the pepper but I never expected it to be this hot. Jalapeno chili powder I made with no seeds is nothing compared to this. We both like good flavor, chili powder with no seeds has a good flavor, this chili powder is just HOT.
We cooked tacos for dinner, after meat was cooked I stirred in 1 teaspoon of the jalapeno chili powder. Made tacos as usually, meat, cheese, sauce, lettuce, shell, the jalapeno chili power is not very hot when added to food. It turned out better than expected. Next time 2 teaspoons of jalapeno chili powder.
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Last edited by Gary350 on Thu Sep 03, 2020 3:33 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Cabbage plant is funny nothing left, tiny green caterpillars ate it up. Every time I spray for blight or bugs it rains again and washes it off. Waste of time.
Sunflowers heads are hanging low and seeds look large. I am disappointed birds & animals have no interest in these sunflower seeds like they do for Black sunflower seeds. I'm not sure when to harvest seeds?
Tabasco pepper plants are loaded with peppers again. Habanero pepper plants have about 75 green peppers I hope they turn into beautiful multi color peppers. I don't remember what the other 5 ft tall pepper plant is, it has about 100 green peppers that are suppose to be multi 5 color peppers this should be a beautiful plant.
I kept the basil plant in full shade all summer in 98 degree heat it did not bolt as it never does when sun does not shine directly on the plant. Now it may be too late for the plant to make seeds that I can save for next year weather has cooled off and overcast every day.
Sweet bell peppers, Mexican chili peppers, Jalapeno pepper plants have many blossoms that will be peppers soon.
Nothing left of the passion fruit plant but worms. It made 2 nice flowers I should have removed worms so it could make more flowers. Too late now.
Sweet potatoes are full of grass & weeds but it is not showing down the sweet potato plants vines are getting out in the yard in all directions. I might dig potatoes up early wife only wants about 10 lbs of potatoes the 4 plants will probably make 75 lbs maybe more.
Rutger tomatoes are a problem. If I let them get ripe on the plants they split open or rot or both. If I pick them before they split or rot they will keep 1 day in the kitchen then they rot. I was considering a full row of 24 Rutger plants next year just for the purpose of having 30 quart mason jars of tomatoes in the pantry but now I am having second thoughts. Rutger is amazing good flavor tomatoes but I think they may be more trouble than they are worth. I'm not sure I can get 30 quarts of good tomatoes from 24 plants. My parents & grandparents grew Rutger with no trouble in southern Illinois.
Is anyone else growing Rutger tomatoes and having better luck growing them?
Is there a different tomato with the exact same good flavor of Rutger?
Your peppers look good. I can grow hot peppers well, but it is hard to get bell peppers to be very big. It is not the peppers fault as they are producing. I have probably got them in too small pots and the birds are eating the peppers before I get to them.
August is never a good time in the garden. I don't have as many pests. I found one caterpillar, white flies and the peach scale which I never can really get rid of. I did find some scale on the citrus, but that was easily taken care of. My garden looks worst for wear too. However, now that it is September, even though it is hot (90F) here, it is the time for me to start planting broccoli, kale, asparagus, onions and crops that have long maturity or need to mature in cooler weather.
You have a lot of skill with potatoes. They are not worth the trouble or space for me to grow them. I have a lot less space than you do. I have worms that would riddle potatoes with holes every time. I grow araimo instead. Easier for me to manage and better suited to my climate.
I have to admit, I am not a bean eater. I only grow a few beans and I still can't use them all. However, they can be frozen or canned. I don't think people, especially the food insecure, don't like fresh produce, but as you said they don't know what to do with it. It is not like they want to eat canned and proceessed food, but it is usually all they have had access to and you are going to eat things that are more familiar. Fresh produce is hard to come by in some places and only we, as gardeners, can really appreciate the difference it makes when you eat a cuke picked the same day from the garden vs a store bought cuke. I gave some cukes away and even my family asked why they had spines on them. Market cukes don't have spines because they are already several days old and limping out. Growing up, we were poor and we did live on canned food. Vegetables ,fresh or canned, was rarely on the table, so was fish. To this day, I don't really like fish, no one in my immediate family does. I think I eat more variety of vegetables than anyone in my family. I made a cold veggie platter with broccoli, cauliflower, and mushrooms. My mom thought it was strange, because it wasn't cooked.
I have a good fresh salsa recipe
5 meaty tomatoes (if you want them less watery, drain the tomatoes)
1/2 cup chopped onion
2 limes zested and juiced about 1/4 cup (lemon or lime juice is o.k.)
4 cloves garlic minced (you can add more if you like garlic)
1/2 cup cilantro, chopped
3-5 Jalapeno peppers ( I don't seed mine, jalapenos are not that hot) sliced or minced depends on whether you want to be able to find them or not. I usually use 1-2 super chili instead. It is hotter.
I don't add salt. Salt usually comes from the chips or whatever you are putting the salsa on. If you like it more salty then add salt and pepper to taste. P.S. Taste the salsa on a chip. Salsa by itself will not taste salty.
It tastes even better if you make a roasted salsa. Quarter vegetables and place them in a single layer on a foil lined baking sheet or in a grilling tray along with jalapeno and garlic (optional) and drizzle with olive or avocado oil. Roast on a grill or in the oven. Leave tomatoes whole and halve onions if roasting on a grill, it makes it easier to handle. Roast garlic with olive oil in foil. I sometimes even add in a roasted bell pepper. Coarsely blend the roasted vegetables and add the remaining ingredients and pulse to blend. Roasted salsa is not pretty, but it has a deeper, smoky flavor. ( I have charcoal grill. The effect won't be quite the same on a propane grill). Garlic could be roasted too, but I usually don't. I use less garlic, because I don't like its strong flavor and I don't want to smell like garlic the next day.
Roasting will mellow the heat of the pepper. If you want a bigger kick, you can add additional fresh peppers when the cilantro and lime are added.
