2024 Garden Thread!

[begreen]

The garden is in full swing now. I pulled the peas a couple of weeks ago and now have a sashimi cuke and a couple of tomatoes in that bed. Broccoli is done. Yesterday I harvested about 10 pounds of carrots. There are 4 rows, succession planted in that bed. Green beans are starting to come in. We're just starting to get some early tomatoes and peppers. Potatoes and the first batch of onions (ringmaster) are getting ready to pick. Eggplants, corn, and peppers will be ready in a week. I am starting a couple of rows of beets for fall picking and some January King style cabbage. At the end of the month I will plant another batch of peas. The 4th batch of lettuce is ready to go into the ground. There are several squash plants and a few zucchinis rounding out the lot. Blueberries are coming out of our ears. We're going to make blueberry syrup with some.

 

[Northern NH Mike]

This weekend I pulled garlic and onions and will repurpose the beds for carrots and later spinach. I have trimmed the tomato plants to try and focus the energy this next month to the fruit; there are a load of small tomatos and still plenty of flowers. Broccoli has been very disappointing here, but the snails have enjoyed themselves on the leaves. Squashes looking healthy.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

I think I’m going to have to rethink/redo my garden. I had it up against the neighbor’s fence. They just replaced it with a fence that has 4” spaces between the slats. I’ll either have to raise the beds a couple feet, or fence the entire thing.

I’m thinking of just raising the beds.

What I’m wondering now, is if I raise them, could I run a simple pex sprinkler system that will be easy to drain come winter. I’d need a low spot drain, as simple as a ball valve at the end, and probably put the heads on threads so they can be easily unscrewed. It’s something to think about if I’m redoing the whole thing. Pex is cheap.

 

[begreen]

A basic 1/2" pvc manifold system with a riser in each bed would work. That can be connected to a drip irrigation system from DripWorks once the beds are filled.

 

[begreen]

First of the onion harvest today. These are Ringmasters. They are nice, sweet onions, but not good for long storage. We'll go through them in the next 2 months. The storing onions (Patterson and Rossa di Milano) are still in the bed and will get harvested in a week or so.

 

[begreen]

One more beauty picture. There are 57 onions here. This is a bit too much considering there is a batch of long storage onions coming next. We are going to try and dehydrate a batch of onions this year for the first time. Has anyone done this? Any tips?

 

[ConstructionContracting]

Those are some luscious onions BeGreen! Ive used my dehydrator on onions before. Id recommend peeling and slicing them 1/4" slices for even drying. My dehydrator only gets to 135' so it takes a few hours.

 

[Prometeo]

yellow and red cherry tomatoes from my wife's parents' garden

 

[30WCF]

Deer or rabbits got my tomatoes, pumpkins and squash that were planted out back a while back. The tomatoes are trying to hang on, but the regrowth will likely be too late. I might get a couple before frost or short days set in. The squash and pumpkins were pulled up by the roots.

Porch peppers are coming along for a late start. Plenty of herbs (basil, thyme, oragan, sage, mint and rosemary).

 

[begreen]

The peppers and basil look good. That's a bummer about the squash and tomatoes. It sounds like deer. It's hard to grow without a fence. I know we couldn't. I don't have a lot of love for those tall-legged rats.

 

[begreen]

Oy! the harvest train is rollin. We have blueberries, onions, corn, peaches, beans, etc. all ripening at once.

 

[begreen]

25 ears of corn harvested today, now being processed for freezing. This is Sugar Buns corn. We are also getting several nice tomatoes a day now. Lots more of them coming in a few weeks.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

@begreen , your garden is looking outstanding. Thanks for all those photos.

We’ve been harvesting some produce here: lots of peppers, okra, red noodle yardlong beans, and tomatoes. It has been a hard summer with drought [it has reached moderate severity, but we have hopes of some rain this week]. I’ve elevated some of my mom’s rain barrels and run hoses to the garden so that I can fill watering cans in the garden itself, but it’s still hard to keep up with the watering. Nevertheless I’m pleased that the okra is starting to come in. This is Texas Hill Country Red Okra, and I’m hoping to save some seed for it this year. The next picture is a pan of yardlong beans after I prepped them for sautéing.




We’re growing a whole variety of tomatoes this year, but I’m particularly enjoying sauces made with the o hearts. I was happy to harvest beautiful Taiga tomatoes [the green when ripe heart shaped ones] and some lovely Hungarian Hearts recently. Our first planting of cucumbers are petering out. There seems to be some blight that kills the vines, but I have a second round started.


My Txorixero sweet peppers are prolific and delicious. I had intended to dry them into paprika, but our new house isn’t finished yet, so my dehydrator is still in storage. We also have a lot of hot sunset banana peppers that I need to ferment for pickled rings. The two bell peppers are the first of my mom’s to ripen. I’ve never been great at bell peppers, so I’m always amazed by how well hers do.




We also have Beaver Dam and Fish peppers coming in as well. I’m sure hoping to get access to my dehydrator soon to make some pepper powders out of those.

 

[begreen]

That looks great DG. Nice job with the okra. It's the one crop I don't grow here. I am curious about the Txorixero peppers. Do they have a unique flavor?

 

[begreen]

Today was spud day. Harvest about 45 lbs. this afternoon. It's a nice crop.

 

[EbS-P]

I decided not complaint tomato’s in that tower this year. I think that was a mistake. Not plant has survived through July. But there lots of kale and chard growing well.
I need to start some fall tomatoes this week.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

That looks great DG. Nice job with the okra. It's the one crop I don't grow here. I am curious about the Txorixero peppers. Do they have a unique flavor?

The Txorixero peppers are sweet when we eat them red. We’ve cut them up in salad, used them in spaghetti sauce, and cooked a Chinese peppers steak dish with them. My original intent had been to dry them and grind them for sweet paprika, but I haven’t yet tested that use.

I’ve read that they can have a very mild heat to them, but if they do, it’s mild enough that we don’t notice it. They’re not as hot as Beaver Dam peppers are, but they grow better for me. They’re prolific and fast maturing, so I like that about them. I think they seem fruity in the same way that Beaver Dam peppers are, and I enjoy that. Other might view them as just a plain sweet pepper. I got them when we lived in Texas as I wasn’t successful with Bell peppers there, so I was looking for an alternative. I like this one enough that I plan to keep growing it. I just saved a bunch of seeds, so you can let me know if you’d like me to send you a few.

Here are a couple of links that describe them.

Txorixero Pepper

Species: Capsicum Annuum Flavor: Sweet, Mild Scoville Heat Units: 100 Origin: Europe Pod size: Up to 12-inches long Main Uses: Frying/grilling, pickling, drying, eating fresh

casaverde-microfarm.com

https://www.rareseeds.com/pepper-sweet-txorixero

This morning I harvested a bunch of Hot Sunset Hybrid Banana Peppers. We grew these in Texas, and they were so hot we could barely eat them raw. We loved them fermented and used on sandwiches, though. They’re not quite as hot here in Virginia but still have more of a kick than one would expect from their description [definitely hotter than a jalapeño]. I just sliced up my harvest and got the fermentation started for our next batch of slices. My plants are so loaded that after I harvested this bunch from just two plants, they don’t even look as though I’ve really picked.



The one crop that is really lagging this year is eggplant. The flea beetles hit them so hard that most of my plants were just stubs. We kept watering, though, and they’ve leafed out again. I hope I can keep them going till they flower, but the flea beetles are after them again.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

Today was spud day. Harvest about 45 lbs. this afternoon. It's a nice crop.

View attachment 328800

That does look like a really nice crop. Good work.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

I need to start some fall tomatoes this week.

Will you start them from seed this week?

It was recommended in Texas that we set out our fall crops like tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants in July, though I have to admit that I usually tried to nurse mine along from spring. Sometimes I would use suckers to clone new plants.

I assume with your weather this week that you won’t be setting out much of anything right now. Will you be moving your hydroponic setups indoors?

 

[EbS-P]

Will you start them from seed this week?

It was recommended in Texas that we set out our fall crops like tomatoes, peppers, and eggplants in July, though I have to admit that I usually tried to nurse mine along from spring. Sometimes I would use suckers to clone new plants.

I assume with your weather this week that you won’t be setting out much of anything right now. Will you be moving your hydroponic setups indoors?

I’m going to try and plant some tomatoe seeds this week. Tower and the gutter rack got rolled under the porch. It prob should have been done 2-4 weeks ago.

 

[begreen]

I just pulled the basil plant in the iDoo. It was planted last October. We have plenty coming from the garden now. Here is the massive root structure. The stem was 1" in diameter!

 

[begreen]

Onions are harvested, third picking of carrots. The raspberries and eggplant are coming on strong. Next week we start processing tomatoes.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

Everything in those photos is beautiful, Begreen. Nicely done.

 

[begreen]

Thank you!. I just did a harvest in before the weekend rain. The green beans have been overwhelming. We've harvested over 70 lbs. so far and they haven't quit. Starting the eggplants in the portable greenhouse was a good idea. We have a bumper crop of them. Best ever.

The tomato plants have been stripped of their leaves and any reddish or blushing fruit has been picked for ripening in the greenhouse. We have several boxes ripening. There are still a lot of green tomatoes on the plants. We'll see what happens. With the cold spring and unseasonably cool, late summer, it has been a challenge this year.

 

[begreen]

Satsumas! So excited to see this baby tree's first crop. There are a lot of lemons and limes on the other citrus too. Ready for harvest next month.