Mary, Mary, quite contrary, How does your garden grow? · Page 14

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RobertHively
Herf-A-Holic

a year ago

#261

Some of the corn is at least 7 feet tall now.

Honey bees are all over the tassels, pollinating.

So many bees that I can hear their humming as I approach the plot.

Ears of corn are now forming on many of the plants.

RobertHively
Herf-A-Holic

a year ago

#262

Couple things:

1) I know I've mentioned using my creek to water the garden many times, but it really is important.

Could never afford to use "city" water at the rate I use it. For example, last night I watered the corn for 50 minutes.

My 43cc 2 stroke pump does 32 gallons per minute. So that's 1,600 gallons of water on just the corn alone yesterday. If it doesn't rain we do this every other day for at least 30 min. Then we do the same with the main garden. Would cost hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars to use city water, and therefore would be unaffordable to water our plants properly.

2) Making homemade pizza with zucchini, squash and other garden vegetables for our cheat meal. We're also gonna make fried zucchini. Lol! I have given 60 of them away and probably preserved 40 more. Plus there's many on the vine to be picked.

I think maybe, just maybe, we grew too many. But it is reducing our grocery bill. That's important.

Over and out.

Abrignac
Herf-A-Holic

a year ago

#263

Had another fried okra snack last night. Nothing better than hand breaded okra fresh from the garden.

frankj1
Herf-A-Holic

a year ago

#264

Black Thumb Frankie, you are in Zone 6 too in Massachusetts.

RayR wrote:

amazingly nothing dead yet.
a few green grape tomatoes have emerged and a bunch of yellow flowers on some other 'maters...

Herbs and leaf romaine doing great in pots on a table out front.

Got a solar powered Tertill a couple years ago. No more weeding my small plot.
Has a tiny weed whacker underneath, looks and acts like a Roomba vacuum, I think same developers.

RobertHively
Herf-A-Holic

a year ago

#265

https://imgur.com/a/corn-plot-6-30-24-3Kf5OrU

Harvested 3 more trash bags of zucchini and squash for a total of 206 thus far.

Contrast that with 2023 where we only had 26 total.

This is an east/west property so we always have sun, and with the creek we always have water.

I think the difference is that Jake told me to lime and fertilize the main garden.

Also, we are using that black plastic over top of the dirt in a portion of the garden, to cut down on weeds.

Learned that from the "Double A Homestead" channel on Youtube. It's helped. Nice couple in their late 20's early 30's.

Rained a ton overnight. Water catchment barrels are overflowing.

Picked 22 ripe peaches from one of our trees. Picked a bunch of bell and banana peppers too. Watermelons, cantaloupes and butternut squash are starting to look good.

That's the garden report.

RobertHively
Herf-A-Holic

a year ago

#266

Had another fried okra snack last night. Nothing better than hand breaded okra fresh from the garden.

Abrignac wrote:

Have never grown or even tried okra. Is it easy to grow?

Wikipedia article I read this morning says they are kinda slimy once you cut them.

I'm not really a fan of fried green tomatoes bc of the slim...

jeebling
Herf-A-Holic

a year ago

#267

Amazingly easy to grow and they love the heat and they also grow very late into the season, until the frost takes them. I eat them raw, pickled and “quick” pickled, boiled, boiled with tomato and onion, roasted, and of course hand breaded and fried. We bread them and freeze them so we get fried okra in winter.

They are slimy.

RobertHively
Herf-A-Holic

a year ago

#268

Wife said she was going to check into what hoops we'd have to jump through in order to sell some of our extra food at the farmers market a county over.

I hope we can, because the corn and tomatoes gonna be crazy this year.

Everything is a county over, whether it be north, south or west. Rarely travel east for goods/services though--that's where the 4,000 footers live.

Love camping, hiking and fishing in the Potomac Highlands. Been doing it for years, long before we moved to West Virginia.

RobertHively
Herf-A-Holic

a year ago

#269

jeebling wrote:

Thanks for the info Jeebs. I might try to grow a few next year, just to try.

Jakethesnake86
Herf-A-Holic

a year ago

#270

Looking good robert

I’m the snake

jeebling
Herf-A-Holic

a year ago

#271

RobertHively wrote:

Thanks for feeding our bees!

Have you ever tried fried squash or zucchini blossoms? Or made soup with them? Or tried them raw in salads? The blossoms are absolutely stellar in a cheese and blossom quesadilla.

Keep up the fine work, Robert. I hope you get rain and not weather damage.

jeebling
Herf-A-Holic

a year ago

#272

RobertHively wrote:

It might be worthwhile to check out someone who already has a small outfit selling vegetables. The extra produce might attract more customers for them and you’d find a way to save your produce from spoiling.

Also, cardboard works well in the garden. I think you should remove all tape and glue to avoid harm to earthworms.

Edited by user a year ago | Reason: Not specified

RobertHively
Herf-A-Holic

a year ago

#273

Thanks Jake & Jeebs.

We bought another 8.8 cubic ft deep freeze. Combined with the other 8.8 we should be good to go now. Told my wife that we ended up with the "casket" looking one after all. It's just in halves.

We have been canning a lot too and giving some away.

Doubt we'll do that farmers market now. It's a long drive and we didn't want to pay the fee for the entire season just to go a few times.

Hoping to build a 90x50 this winter to go with our other 2 plots. It would give us another 4,500 sq ft of garden, and more than double our current space.

Maybe one day we'll make it to farmers market level. Lol

Up to 224 zucchini and squash now. We did grow a lot more this year, but our yield is up 30%.

Got our first batch of Blue Lake green beans, starting to get a lot of cucumbers too. Been eating good lately. Still no tomatoes, but they're close.

frankj1
Herf-A-Holic

a year ago

#274

I absolutely love veggies.
Got a few veggie as dinner recipes?

jeebling
Herf-A-Holic

a year ago

#275

Those Blue Lake Green beans hold up very well in a stir-fry. Terrific with shredded left over chicken, pot roast or whatever hunk of meat you have. They are nice steamed as well.

RobertHively
Herf-A-Holic

a year ago

#276

Afternoon thunderstorms gave us a lot of rain--no watering today.

Todays haul was 13 zucchini/squash, a dozen cucumbers, 15 jalapenos, 26 banana peppers and 4lb 7oz of blue lake bush beans.

Made jalapeno poppers. Delicious.

Canned 7 pints of beans, 6 pints of pickles and 2 pints of banana peppers this evening.

I think Jeebs mentioned the "quick can" method in a previous post. That's what we do for a lot of our peppers and cucumbers. We call it a "10 min can". They aren't as soggy that way.

Also, we "cold can" a lot of the cucumbers. The jars seal but we keep them in the fridge at all times. Cold canned pickles are crunchy and have the texture of Claussen brand pickles.

RobertHively
Herf-A-Holic

a year ago

#277

I absolutely love veggies.
Got a few veggie as dinner recipes?

frankj1 wrote:

Well Monday I ate 5 cucumbers and some cheese. Not bad. Lol

Mainly just a lot of that Zucchini lasagna or zoodles with some type of meat, lately.

Had steak, blue lake green beans and new potatoes one evening.

Made jalapeno poppers earlier.

Fried zucchini on Saturdays of course, getting close to switching over to eggplant...

Wife is gonna start making homemade salsa once the tomatoes come in...

Don't really have a lot of good veggie recipes other than a meal with lean protein, some type of carb and lots of veggies. Once you get much more elaborate than that, there's usually too many calories for us.

Other than vegetable soup or salad idk if I ever eat only vegetables now that I think of it. You got any good vegetable recipes that aren't fried? Lol. I'm going to try the baked eggplant recipe that you suggested, but will probably make chicken with it.

We do make a quinoa casserole dish with beans and other vegetables, but it has cheese in it.

jeebling
Herf-A-Holic

a year ago

#278

Garden soup and cornbread.

RobertHively
Herf-A-Holic

a year ago

#279

Canned 24 quarts of zucchini and squash. Ridiculous. And there's still a lot left.

Next year we're only going to grow four or five of them so we can have some to eat fresh. That's it.

BuckyB93
Herf-A-Holic Topic Starter

a year ago

#280

You guys are making me hungry.

My beans have not produced any picking fruit yet. My peas are going strong but the problem is, when I pick them I eat them as I pick them so they don't make it inside. Sweet peppers and hot peppers are going strong. Cukes also have not produced fruit yet but plenty of flowers. Tomatoes are plugging along but still green.

The herbs have been cropped back a couple times for fresh seasoning and drying some but they still march ahead like weeds (Italian and Greek oregano, chives, basil, parsley, Rosemary and stuff). Kinda sad that my Tyme died off but I'm pretty sure that I'll get over it.

Getting a good soaking rain tonight and tomorrow. Sometimes cloud bursts and sometimes a steady drizzle. The grow bags handle it just fine. They breathe and drain water as needed so the plants don't get over watered.

Sunflowers are about 5 feet tall. I don't know exactly what ones I planted (my Son started them, I think he picked maroon or red-ish or purple ones rather than the typical yellow ones) but they have not flowered yet. They are still growing leaves and stalks, Maybe in a few weeks or so they will make flowers and pop and attract pollinators.

The little deck outside my Son's room has a lush surrounding of greenery. Pull up a chair, light a cigar, and chill out while looking up at the stars.

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