I had already posted four times this summer about my garden before I noticed the @gardenjournal contest. This time I will include my garden post here!
Last weekend the tomatoes began turning red in a serious way. Some years, I bring nearly the entire crop into the house in late September, still green, and wait for them to ripen in flats under the beds. This year the weather has been unusually warm and the tomatoes apparently like it.
I have been rinsing them, removing the stem area/core, and freezing them whole. My intention is to make salsa and spaghetti sauce in the winter when I don't mind standing over a hot kettle. Today I froze two batches like this. As far as I know, I only have two varieties of tomato plants, so I'm not sure why there is such a wide range of sizes.
I picked cucumbers on Monday. I thought I checked the vines on Tuesday and Wednesday, but maybe I didn't: my son brought all of these in on Thursday!
A recent day's harvest is pictured below. That was the last little ear of corn, and the tomato got knocked off by accident. It will ripen in the house.
Our water rates are going up, so this summer I experimented with ways to use less water in the garden. I watered each plant or hill by hand, using a watering can when the plants were small, and the hose after the plants were bigger. That worked well until the plants got really big and the weather became very warm.
In my previous garden post I bemoaned the afternoon wilting of the cucumber and squash plants. I bought more shade cloth with which to shelter them in the heat of the day, but that didn't solve the problem. I finally realized I was going to have to use the oscillating sprinklers and soak ALL of the ground, not just the places where the plants are growing. Those sprinklers are said to waste a great deal of water, but it's what I have to work with so it's what I used.
And it worked wonders! The vine plants quit wilting every afternoon. The lilac leaves perked up and the sunflowers began to grow rapidly. I was so pleased to see all of those plants looking healthy once again.
I did pull up three of the Red Kuri squash hills because those plants had no little squashes starting on them anywhere, and it was too late in the season for any latecomers to mature. I kept one plant, and the one Red Kuri squash on it may actually mature before frost arrives.
I haven't mentioned the zucchini and the yellow straightneck summer squash. They are producing busily, with plenty to share with my friends.
Despite some ups and downs, I would say this has been a successful gardening season. I keep saying I must downsize next year, but will I remember that next spring? I have several months in which to change my mind.
I'm definitely downsizing next year too:) 500 onions is just too many. 495 I think is quite enough.
With this, I can surely identify!
It's odd how time slips by....
Yes, 495 onions ought to suffice. LOL!
I see you are very busy too keeping up with all the produce. This summer has been perfect with the heat and rainfall. Everything looks wonderful, great job!
Thank you! I've been enjoying your posts and getting ideas for things to try sometime!
I suspect the needing to water thing isn't going to do away. For me, the heavy mulch works most of the time. I only had to water twice. For next year, maybe you want to consider investing in drip hoses? I used them around the little trees when they were planted and it saved a lot of time and water.
I don't have the where with all to buy or set up drip hoses in the big gardens. Deep mulching has worked well there.
I've seen how you use many bales of straw to mulch your gardens. Isn't that a rather big expense every year? Does it rain very often in the summer, where you live? Here, it rarely rains in July, August, and the first half of September. I've considered drip hoses, but then I'd have to be very careful about where I placed each plant or hill, and I don't think I, personally, would be physically able to set them up. Nor can my husband. Hiring it out would be yet another big expense. I have to carefully weight the cost/benefit factors of gardening. Currently, the cost is about to outweigh the benefits. The Farmers Market is looking better all the time!
I use hay exclusively, NOT straw. Yes, it is an expense but budgeted. I’ve found the best food is NOT the cheapest. Some years we have tons of rain, some years months of drought. Never know from year to year.
The setting up of drip hoses in the veg gardens is well beyond me, as I said, so hay it is. I could not afford to pay someone to do it either.
The benefit of figuring out a system that will provide you with enough food is that you aren’t dependent on someone else for food. As I don’t drive, I can’t get to farmers markets or stores easily. So it’s good to know I have enough here for a year if I need it.
I do enjoy the fresh produce straight from the garden. I have to figure out how much I can realistically do by myself and still have enough time and energy to spend with my grandchildren.
Beautiful garden food. In a couple of weeks I will start my seeds for our garden. We can not grow much in the summer, but grow all winter. Sweetpotatos. Okra and peppers are just about it for a summer garden for us.
I would like to try growing sweet potatoes sometime.
If you do try, plant the sweet potato and let the green get about a foot long and cut it off, and plant that part. Don't grow them from a planted sweet potato. You will get a better yield.
Thanks for the tip!
Your welcome
I love sunflowers. This is one I saw earlier today.
Wow what a lovely photo!
Nice one!
Nice harvest! 🥰
You have a beautiful garden and lucky friends.
My sister and I love sunflowers!
I forgot to plant them for a couple of years, and these went in late, but they are blooming now. Yay!
Brilliant stuff. Definitely work on the soil and mulching as that helps massively with water consumption.
I'm rather new at the mulching part. I don't recall my parents using a great deal of mulch when I was growing up, but that was a different climate and no shortage of irrigation water. I've been experimenting with it this year.
The sunflowers and veggies all look amazing. 🌻🍅🥒
Thank you!