Tennessee 2022 Garden

[Gary350]

7 am I put another FREE vegetables AD on market place, 92 cucumbers, 18 onions, 7 bell peppers.

About 7:30 am I cut all the cucumber plants off to let the plant wilt & die.

About 10 am a lady can that only wanted, 4 onions, 4 sweet bell peppers and 10 cucumbers.

1 pm a lady from India can, she wanted 20 cucumbers & the peppers & onions.

1:30 pm I pulled up all the dead cucumber plants. Wow it is HOT.

2 pm a lady came she only wanted all 62 cucumbers.

Food Bank people never came.

Humidity makes it feel hotter than 95° it feels like 115°.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qKbX-8RXg9E

[imafan26]

I am glad you are helping to support the community. You will be blessed.

[Gary350]

This morning I picked another 1/2 gallon of Black Cumberland Raspberries, I usually call them blackberries, this makes 3 gallons total. It has been so hot & dry ripe berries are the size of a pea but if I wait 3 days berries become large enough they are worth picking. 76° this morning hot humid steam bath feels like 105°.

Yesterday wife sliced 100 onions and put them in the freezer. Red onions had a shelf live of 1 month. Vidalia onions had a shelf life of 2 months. Yellow shelf life is about 3 or 4 months, we sliced then put them all in freezer bags. Cooking is easier grab a hand full of onions throw them into what your cooking.

Next years I will only plant yellow candy onion plants, not onion sets. 200 will be more than enough, not 400. There is always a certain percentage of onions that don't grow and a certain percentage that never mature, 200 onion plants might give us 150 good big slicer onions.

[imafan26]

Despite all your challenges you get a lot out of your garden. I have a much smaller garden space so I don't grow a lot of any one thing. Regular onions and garlic are things which I have grown, but do not grow regularly because they take up too much space in the garden for too long and they are cheaper for me to buy than to grow. The Texas granax which I grow are only sweet for about 2 weeks then they get very hot. It is hard to dry onions and garlic properly in a hot humid climate, so they don't store well at all.

[Gary350]

Despite all your challenges you get a lot out of your garden. I have a much smaller garden space so I don't grow a lot of any one thing. Regular onions and garlic are things which I have grown, but do not grow regularly because they take up too much space in the garden for too long and they are cheaper for me to buy than to grow. The Texas granax which I grow are only sweet for about 2 weeks then they get very hot. It is hard to dry onions and garlic properly in a hot humid climate, so they don't store well at all.

I know what you mean some things are cheaper at the grocery store. When we lived in town for 35 years my garden was very small 15 ft x 30 ft. I had not learned how to grow onions & garlic yet. Tomatoes & corn were our #1 favorite crops because grocery store corn & tomatoes have terrible flavor.

[Gary350]

I picked a few peppers in the garden. I sliced Red Carman peppers then put them in freezer bags for the freezer. I made 1 jar of pickled banana peppers, wait an see how they taste in 30 days. I pealed potatoes to make masked potatoes for dinner. Its hard to believe we had 61 lbs of potatoes but now we only have about 10 lbs. We made potato salad several times then sent the left overs home with the our kids. We made masked potatoes several times, fried potatoes & baked potatoes too. I have been eating hash brown potatoes for breakfast every morning for 2 months.

My compost is piling up, 55 gallon barrel full, 3 trash cans full, several 5 gallon buckets full. 90+55+25= 170 gallons of compost & there will be much more when corn is cut down. I usually mow everything with the lawn mower then blow it all into the garden and till it in. I never realized there is this much material. I want all the bean plants in the 4 corn rows. I have 90 gallons of saw dust in 30 gallon trash cans it needs to go in the soil north side of garden where there is too much clay. Truck load of free mulch I got 2 weeks ago needs to go north side of garden too. It is too hot to unload this truck.

Wife wants RED peppers not green flavor is better. I'm not planting anymore sweet bell peppers. Carman is the best I am glad I bought these to test this year. They do excellent in this hot dry weather plants are loaded with peppers. These peppers need to stay on the plants to turn RED they will not turn red in the kitchen like other peppers do. Next year I plant 4 Carman and no other peppers.

Jalapeno peppers have cracks that means they are HOT as fire & Red flavor is getter than Green.

[imafan26]

I grow Carmen and Big Jim peppers too. They are more prolific and are easier to grow than bell peppers.

[Gary350]

Regular onions and garlic are things which I have grown, but do not grow regularly because they take up too much space in the garden for too long and they are cheaper for me to buy than to grow.

Grocery store garlic never lasts long if we don't use it right away it rots or dries up. Sometimes grocery store garlic is already 50% bad when we buy it.

If I keep garlic in the refrigerator 2 months before planting cloves grow tops in about 3 to 5 days instead of 4 weeks. In TN I plant cloves 4" apart 2 months before first frost then harvest 5 to 6 weeks after last frost. TN garlic is a 9 month crop. AZ garlic is a 6 month crop winter is short & not very cold. I can plant 81 garlic plants in a 3' x 3' square.

Grocery store yellow onions are 3 lbs for $3.49 at Walmart & 3 lbs $4.99 at Kroger. A bundle of 75 onion plants at garden store is $5, I can grow about $55 worth of grocery store onions for $5. Walking outside to pull up a few onions for dinner is very handy & more FUN than driving to the grocery store.

Not many places sell onion plants anymore. Dickson Dale Farms, 3 bundles of 75 onions each + shipping $50. Too expensive, grocery store is a better choice. Garden store plants $5. 250 seeds $2.

This winter I'm going to plant 250 candy onion seeds under an upside down fish aquarium Nov 1st and hope I have onions plants to transplant March 1st. Onions transplants are a 3 month crop of 2½" diameter onions. Onions sets are a 3 month crop of 1½ & 2" diameter onions.

[Gary350]

It is hard to say NO to a gallon of ripe berries that are waiting to be picked. The rain we had has fattened up the berries. Very dark gray clouds & a tiny sprinkle of rain makes it seem not so hot outside. I was getting very near being finished when the sun came through the clouds and it suddenly feels 40° hotter. I was about to quit early when sun was gone and 5 minutes later I was finished. I am only picking what I see on the surface another 3/4 gallon today.

I keep finding Morning Glory vines with very nice looking blue flowers in the garden, seeds must have blown in from Nebraska in 1 of the 70 mph wind storms. I pull plants up soon as I find them. I had morning glories in the garden once 25 years ago it took 7 years to get rid of them.

[Gary350]

9 tomatoes and 7 kinds of peppers from the garden today. Poblano pepper in the center is almost invisible. Poblano peppers are getting too much shade, 4 hours of SUN in the morning, 2 with TN clouds, 0 with dark storm clouds. Now we know Poblano needs a lot of sun to grow big as grocery store peppers this might also improve the poor flavor. I did not realize the little tree is much larger than it use to be. Green Jalapeno is also very hard to see.

Look at the Yellow bird on the wooden post almost center of picture. This birds spend the entire day in the garden. Bird usually won't let me get close enough to get a good photo.

I tried to get a picture of the large black butterfly but it won't let me get close it flies away. Large black wings with some yellow.

[applestar]

That’s a male Goldfinch. Although they will hunt for small bugs and caterpillars when nesting, they are seed eaters and might be looking over your zinnias to see if any of them has gone to seed.

They come to bird feeders for niger seeds and broken up sunflower seeds (I don’t think they can crack open on their own) and nut seeds. They also go after evening primrose seeds, perilla seeds, any of the brassica (kale, mustard, radish, etc) seeds.

[Gary350]

That’s a male Goldfinch. Although they will hunt for small bugs and caterpillars when nesting, they are seed eaters and might be looking over your zinnias to see if any of them has gone to seed.

They come to bird feeders for niger seeds and broken up sunflower seeds (I don’t think they can crack open on their own) and nut seeds. They also go after evening primrose seeds, perilla seeds, any of the brassica (kale, mustard, radish, etc) seeds.

Yes several Zinnias have lost there peddles but seed tops have not dried out yet. Maybe yellow fench eats seeds before they dry. Volunteer sunflower has lost several peddles too but seeds are not dry yet. I put black sunflower seeds in the bird feeder, chickadee & titmouse come eat the seeds. Even the tiny chickadee babies come eat the black sunflower seeds. Birds have plenty of things to eat a small hand full of seeds is not eaten up for several days.

Here is a pic of an interesting plant that grows like a tiny carpet. It reminds me of a Doily used to set a water glass or coffee cup on. I don't know the name of this plant I don't see many in the garden.

Here are local garden pictures, be ware of Rattle Snakes in your garden. LOOK before you touch. TN has lots of Copper Head snakes too. Our dog keeps barking at a 5 ft snake at night I wonder if that snake eats garden bugs. I saw 1 stink bug on the sunflower plant.

[Gary350]

I like to grow new things but we don't remember to eat them and don't know how to cook them. Growing up 60 years ago we never had greens on the kitchen table, no one knew how to grow them and my mother use to say, greens are over priced water with no food value, I have 5 people to feed we can't live on lettuce. Growing up we were poor people money was better spent on, beans, potatoes, meat. Yesterday after eating a sandwich for lunch I remembered, OH I should have picked 8 pac choy leaves for my sandwich. Wife baked a whole chicken after dinner was over we remembered, we should have put lemon grass in the chicken. I finally got my hands on a Thai Basel plant this year but we seldom remember to eat it & not sure how to eat it. Old memories & old ways die hard we eat what we were tough by our parents. We have a volunteer RED Swiss Chard I love Red Swiss Chard but seldom remember to eat it. I planted Fennel again this year we seldom remember to eat it and not sure how to eat it. I sometimes put a big hand full of fennel on a sandwich. Sometimes when I'm the garden I pull off some Fennel and eat it, sometime I eat Thai basil, some times chard, I don't wash it I just pull it off the plant and eat it. I like to grow Cilantro and know how to use it in food but we can't eat a bushel basket full of it. We have cilantro in the freezer but so far we have not remembered to use it. New things are fun to grow but they are wasted space in our garden.

[imafan26]

I am glad we not supposed to have snakes here.

[Gary350]

I have been watching and testing corn every day and today 30 ears are sweet as sugar 10 days ahead of schedule. Black corn bugs are terrible this year they enter the ears at the silks and so far have only been able to attach an destroy the top 1" of about 10 of these 30 ears. Wife blanched the corn, we saved 4 ears for dinner. I sliced kernels from 26 ears, that made 6 bags about 24 ounces per bag.

Corn plants are still bent in all directions from the storm that makes is hard to find ears that are laying on the soil in that twisted mess. 8 am we have a 10 mph 78° wind that feels weird, wind feels 20° warmer that the air temperature.

[Gary350]

I picked 93 ears of corn this morning, I picked 30 ears 2 days ago = 124 ears total so far. There should be 40 more ears in the garden probably hiding among the twisted storm damage corn stalk pile. I was shucking the corn outside, wife kept coming to get corn to blanch in the kitchen. When I finished I started slicing kernels off the cob and wife filled 24 zip lock bags. Black corn bugs were bad this year we have more than enough corn, I cut 1" to 3" from several ears to remove the bad. Our goal was 20 bags, including 6 bags yesterday, 24 + 6 = 30 bags of corn in the freezer.

[Gary350]

I'm staying in the house the rest of the day. Heat index is 115° F the next 3 days. Blackberry plants have very few berries. Beans, cucumbers, onions, garlic, corn are all gone and lots of dead plants for compost. Wife said, we don't need anymore peppers cut the plants down. That leaves, tomatoes, melons & Zinnias in the garden.

[Gary350]

Here is a very interesting discovery. The G90 corn stalks try to grow 2 ears of corn but only 1 ear grows to full size. Storm a few weeks ago broke the stalk off 1 plant a few inches above the 2nd ear. With the top 1/2 of the plant gone both ears grew to full size. See photo.

This makes me think about grape vines and apple trees. They are allowed to grow large plants then plants are pruned back 50% to get very large fruit from small plants. When I worked at the apple orchard I was told, instead of a big apple tree growing 1000 small apples pruning makes the small tree grow 500 much larger apples.

I don't have anymore G90 seeds so I can't do the experiment I would like to do until next year.

[Gary350]

3 more cantaloups today. I cut open the smallest one first it is sweet and almost ripe. Not soft like grocery store cantaloups they are probably several days old before arriving at the grocery store. I wonder is cantaloups get riper like, avocado's & bananas. Next I sliced the cantaloup that has been in the kitchen for 3 days it is sweet but hard like an apple. Pineapples need to set around for about 1 week before they are ripe enough to eat. So I will leave the other 2 cantaloups in kitchen for maybe 5 to 7 days to see if it gets ripe.

I finally got a photo of a hyper black butterfly that never stays on a flower longer than 1 second.

[Gary350]

I walked out to the street to sprinkle 50 Egyptian Walking Onion Bulbs around the mail box post when I notice Berry plants have berries again. A few days ago there were no berries and it looked like there was not going to be more berries. I picked another 3/4 gallon of berries. I lost count how many berries I picked already, not sure if its 3 gallons or 3½ gallons. Berries in freezer are under 30 bags of corn. 7:30 am its 73° TV now claims 101° today.

[imafan26]

The berries look so good. I only have strawberries and they are really unhappy now. I moved them to the shade, but a lot of them were already burned. The only other "berries" I have are popolo berries which are a weed but can be used as a dye, and miracle berry.

[Gary350]

I saved a few cilantro seeds to plant March 1st.

imafan26, I am getting 12 strawberry plants Oct.

[Gary350]

This morning TV News reported several fires caused by spontaneous combustion in this hot 100° weather. If you have mulch around trees, around bushes, around your house or garden compost pile keep it wet with a water hose.

I have a pickup truck load of compost I need to unload this morning before it gets hotter, I was not planning to unload this until Oct in cooler weather.

[Gary350]

Applestar, you are right finch birds are eating Zinnia seeds. They hang on to the stem below the flowers then pull open the bottom side of the flowers to get to the seeds. I see 2 males & 1 female. Female is brown on top like a sparrow with yellow breast. There maybe 2 more females I saw 3 birds that look like sparrows flying around the Zinnias but never got a good look at them. I was spraying garden with water hose birds paid no attention to me not even when I accidently sprayed some water on them. When I went into the house and came right back with the camera birds acted like they were spooked they watched me very close for several seconds then flew away. Finch is in center of photo.

Security camera is aimed in the correct direction to see who the corn eaters are. There are several more corn ears that will be ripe soon corn eaters will return.

Todays harvest is a good number of things, see photo.

I cut off several Zinnia seed pods for next years seed supply. I still have 1/4 lb of seeds I bought. Next year I am thinking serious about planting, 4 rows of corn, 1 row of tomatoes, 1 row with onions & garlic, 15 rows of Zinnias.

Here is a good video from Italy, correct way to make, spaghetti sauce or could also be pizza sauce. I had to stop the video over and over to read English. I made good notes. I don't think I will have enough tomatoes this year to make 1 jar of spaghetti sauce. They grow San Marzano Cherry tomatoes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0CsZN_Mtyc8

[Gary350]

My neighbor John that lives up the road 1/2 mile brought me 12 strawberry plants in pots started from his runners. He has replanted his strawberries from his runners for 40 years, he does not remember the name of these plants. Black clouds are getting closer I hurried to get my, string, rake, shovel, before it storms. Sky is rumble rumble rumble from thunder several miles away. Just as I finished planting the last plant it started to ran. It rained hard for 20 minutes. Strawberry plants are in row 7 planted 24" apart. Next summer transplants go in row 6, then a year later row 7 again. There should be enough rummers next year to start 2 rows of strawberries. I'm glad it rained it helps me to see if plant are high up enough to be above spring rain swamp.

[Gary350]

This is the midnight corn eater thief. LOL.

[Gary350]

Best watermelon ever. Good flavor & very sweet. This is melon #3.

No good cantaloupes yet, not ripe or rotted. I put calcium on plants for BER but that did not fix the rot problem.

[Gary350]

Not much happening in the garden, I haven't done anything in about 2 weeks sense we picked all the corn.

The 25 strawberry plants I bought on ebay $1 each were planted a few days ago and 24 plants are growing leaves.

Melons are getting out of control so I cut all the vines short with my razor blade sharp shovel.

Strawberry plants neighbor gave me have grown larger, plants look good.

I put all the tomato cages in 5 stacks of 7 per stack.

After a week of rain tomato seeds in 2 tomato rows are starting to grow. I will need to trans plant a few of them to get even spacing. I want 40 plants in each row to crawl across the soil to see how well they grow. The lady from India said she will take all the tomatoes I grow, she freezes them solid then puts whole frozen tomatoes in things she cooks.

[Gary350]

Birds are thirsty they are destroying all the tomatoes to get a drink. I put 5 gallon bucket of water next to tomato plants this usually solves the problem.

It rained every day for a week, now 50% rain in forecast every day but no rain for 3 days garden is dry 95° every day.
.

[imafan26]

The birds after awhile don't even wait for the tomatoes to ripen and will attack even green fruit. That's the main reason why I bag tomato fruit.

[applestar]

I keep watering stations near tomatoes, too. If they are coming from one side, I put the water between entry point and the garden.

I occasionally see the sharp slashes on ripe tomatoes that I suspect are the bold catbirds.

My main problem has been chipmunks and voles. I’ve had to (carefully) set traps so curious birds like wrens don’t get caught (like it happened one time). I had another vole in a small trap I’d set in the middle of the tomato bed yesterday.

[lakngulf]

The birds after awhile don't even wait for the tomatoes to ripen and will attack even green fruit. That's the main reason why I bag tomato fruit.

I guess the birds get after tomatoes all season but it becomes really obvious at the end when the fruit is scarce. As I drove in one day 4 or 5 big crows took off from the tomato cages in the garden. You are right they begin to attack the fruit that is barely turning. That has caused me to gather them as son as I see some pink.
Started eating Cherokee Purple tomatoes in late May. My son and his family (who all love tomatoes) are making their first trip from North Carolina to Lake Martin since the virus scare. They will arrive Sunday. I am doing everything I can to make the tomatoes last until their visit. Its a battle between me and the birds!

[Gary350]

Today I cut down 3 of the 4 rows of corn. I left 1 row to use like wall to block the lawn mower from blowing corn pieces all over the whole garden but as it turned out corn only blew over far enough to cover row 3. I scattered the corn stocks so they are not to deep. Then I drive over stalks with mower deck on 5, then drive over them again with mower deck on 4, then on 3, then on 2. Then pile stalks up and drive over them 4 times. Pile stalks up 1 more time & drive over them again. Then I cut down row 4 and drove over them 4 times. Green stalks are chopped to tiny pieces. I scattered mulched corn stalks all over the soil then tilled them in. It took about 30 minutes to mulch corn & 25 minutes to till the soil.

I don't know what's wrong with this camera photos look weird.

[Gary350]

Todays harvests lots of red, carman, tomato, jalapano, 1 yellow pepper.

[Gary350]

I have a lot of left over Bread & Buttle pickle brine so we have been pickling, Red Onions, Red sweet bell peppers, yellow banana peppers, Red Jalapeno peppers, beans, & anything else we can think of. We keep testing this in food vinegar cooks away and it turns our good. This morning I made French toast with Red onions & Red sweet peppers & chicken for breakfast. Chicken stir fly turns out good, Pizza we made was good, Fried potatoes with onions & peppers was good. Stir fry is good. Country fried steak with onions & peppers was good. I made salsa with onions & Jalapeno peppers.

[Gary350]

This yellow banana pepper looks good but they are not. Peppers are hard and woody. Peppers have almost no flavor, hard to chew up, once peppers breaks up it is like trying to chew up wood pieces.

[Gary350]

How do people eat Thai Basil? It has a mild smell & mild flavor compared to Sweet Basil.

I made a YouTube Italy spaghetti recipe, tomatoes, onion, garlic, basil, salt, sugar. Spaghetti & meat balls for dinner.

Basil plant is making lots of seeds..

[Gary350]

About 60% of my peppers have bad spots?

[Gary350]

I have decided that I don't know how to pick a ripe cantaloupe so I went to the Walmart & Aldi's to examine cantaloupes and buy 2 melons.

I went to the garden and picked the ripest cantaloupe it looks riper than the Walmart melon.

FIRST picture is Walmart melon on the left side & garden melons on the right side of photo. Walmart melon looks green, garden melon looks riper than Walmart. Picture #3 garden melon is hard as an apple and not sweet. Picture #4 Walmart melon sweet as candy & not as hard but near the rind its too hard to eat. Aldi melon was so soft & sweet we ate the whole thing & I forgot to take pictures. LOL.

There are several more melons in the garden. Every time I wait for a totally yellow melon its all ready rotten. I gave plants calcium for BER but still have rotten melons. I wonder if a different type melon will grow better. I would rather grow Zinnias than melons.



.

[applestar]

As far as I know, cantaloupe should slip from the vine when ready to harvest (if yours doesn’t, grow varieties that do next time). The fruit will smell fruity at the stem scar.

At this point, the melon is not quite ready to eat however, and should be ripened in the kitchen for another 2~3 days just like tomatoes.

Grocery store melons are harvested even earlier, for firmer shipping, farmers market melons are (should be) more ripe like you harvested in the garden at slip stage … to already ripened post harvest.