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Hi, all gardeners


kimberly
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Leafy and GC, sorry to hear of the loss of your pets. Always distressing.

Things seem to be flourishing at present. Maybe recent rain has something to do with that.... :rolleyes: Took off my first two courgettes (zucchini) yesterday. Some things still haven't got the message though.

Thanks Twinky, I miss him :(

My courgettes have flowers and I have tomatoes, albeit small ones! Sweetpeas are starting to set seeds, they are on their way out. I've made some red currant muffins that were delicious, I'm hoping to get a few more blueberries on my bush so I can do the same with them. My peppers bushes have one little bitty peppers growing and the cucumbers has flowers and one small piece of fruit. The rain has been good for everything.

gc

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One tiny squash waiting to grow. We need rain, promised it for two days, no rain, while the southern part of the state gets it all.

Lots and lots of green tomatoes.

Still getting big juicy berries off the Black Mack black raspberry bushes. Promise of blackberries too.

Patience......patience......patience.......

WG

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gc, where I live you have to grow it in the county to sell it at the county farmer's market.

I cut the herbs, wrapped twine around portioned bunches, attached a price tag to the individual bunches, plopped all of them into small buckets of water and off to market I went. I gave instructions on how to keep them fresh in the fridge and how to dry them.

Yes, waysider, it is time once again. I remember that!!! Has it been a year already?!?!! Mercy sakes!

Can't can a tomato if I wanted to out of my own garden. What a voracious appetite we have for maters.

We won't starve for greenbeans and squash. The butterbeans are beautiful. I felt the pod and the bean needs to fill out a little more. There is a lot of flowers on the plants, also. It amazes me that beans and peas thrive in lack of rain. Just like last year.

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We have had numerous hail storms this summer, unusually stormy here but our house is up a yard or so from the street so at least we didn't flood like nmany neighbors. The garden really took a hit. :( We had a pvc arch over the peppers and tomatoes so could cover them easily enough, but nothing else seems to have made it through the quarter size hail except the herbs and perrinneals like rhubarb and horseradish. The siberiean motherwort and sage didn't even notice the hail.

Waa! Off to the farmer's market.

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We are having beautiful late September weather; problem is, it's the middle of July!

With the weather cooling, I have a strange feeling all the tomatoes are going to ripen at once - AFTER Mr. Garden returns to his classroom! :excl:

Time for canning. When I was a kid we lived all winter on the canned tomatoes from the last fall crop. Granted you'll be a couple of months early but you won't lose those tomatoes!

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The first year we canned tomatoes, we ended up with about 100 quarts of tomatoes, juice and sauce. I've been hooked on canning since then. I think we are going to have a lot of green beans to can also.

I'm excited. If the economy gets much worse, I'm gonna defy the odds, the red-tailed hawks and the coyotes and raise myself some chickens! (probably in cement bunkers with all the predators that hang out here).

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Bramble, so sorry about your garden.

Our weather has been crazy too. This time of year we are accustomed to the feeling of a hot wet towel wrapped around the face when we are outside. But it has been so mild. The temps only in the high eighties and low nineties and not the humidity we use to. I have a feeling August may make up for it with a vengeance. We have actually been driving with the windows down.

Picked butterbeans today. One thing I have noticed this year with the early rains concerning the herb garden. When it produces, it produces then is nearly spent when the rain slacks.

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When referring to the herb garden I meant the annuals. I broke down and watered/fertilized

the dill and basil. I am hoping for a comeback. The perinnial's (sp?)are forging on. Nothing seems to faze them.

Oh, I planted Crowder Peas this past weekend. The mean little beetle that likes to forge on them is now past.

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when I was in New Orleans/Pass Christian areas in June the weather was hotter than normal! I read 104 on a thermometer before noon. When I talked to family this past week they have said that it has cooled down some and has not been as hot as when I was there. Cooled down as in low 90's ;) If it wasn't raining here the weather would be wonderful! I think today might be nice, I can see blue sky with white clouds out my window.

While I was away everything was attacked by caterpillars, all of my brassicas are holy, I mean holey. I've cut my first calebrese on Tuesday, made a broccoli quiche and it was wonderful.

The sweetpeas are working overtime! I'm still able to cut and bring them inside. I think a few of my beets are ready to be harvested, I love beets! Neither types of beans did much of anything, they were attacked by the slugs. Gosh, they have humogous slugs here, big and fat from eating on my plants :)

Over all I've been over joyed by my garden this first year. There has been something for everyone; people, bees, butterflies, moths, aphids ;) ladybugs (or ladybirds if you are from England), frogs, slugs, birds, grasshoppers etc etc etc. :)

Time to go outside!

gc

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We came back from a two day vacation/anniversary celebration to tons of green beans and zucchini. We planted Blue Lake and Roma green beans, the Romas are the ones that are going great, though I expect some Blue Lake later.

It's very raining with thunder and lightning on and off, but I am going to skip through the raindrops and get those squash! I already picked huge pile of beans.

I can see where the ripe sweet corn was because the deer ate 'em off! :o

WG

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WG, I've got to check out some different types of beans for next year. I grew French, which I'll try again, and Broad Beans, which I won't do again, though the flowers are lovely. I'll look to see if Roma and Blue Lake are grown here since they are doing well for you.

gc

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My grandma grew Kentucky Wonder and Blue Lake (pole greenbean) and Contender (bush greenbean). I grow Contender. I have to tell you when everything else seems to fail in my garden the Contender sails on through. I didn't grow greenbeans last year because I wanted 2 varieties of butterbeans. I really missed the greenbeans last year because I had to buy them to make vegetable soup.

The bush bean does seem to produce all at one time but if you are diligent to not give up on them and fertilize them well after the initial harvest they will produce prolifically again. I save two bushes that I do not pick from to get seed for next year.

Just remember to stay away from the greenbeans when the leaves and ground are wet. They do not like that and are susceptible to Brown Rust. This can really affect the soil for the next couple of growing seasons if you plant beans in that same area.

I picked a 5 gallon bucket of tomatoes today. Yeh, uh huh, uh huh!!!!! I think I will sleep with them by my bed, tonight!! Thank God for tomatoes!!! XOXOXO

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Contender, that sounds like a winning name, I may have to try him too! Kimberly, what exactly do you mean by wet ground? Waiting for the ground to dry, which would mean it hadn't rained for two days straight, doesn't happen regularly here. It has rained during some part of the day, every day, except twice, since I got back from New Orleans on the 3rd! I live in a very rainy country! :)

gc

Edited by gc
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o. k. gc, you get lots of rain in England. Rub it in, honey girl. We are having the typical southeastern dog days. I should have kept my mouth shut a few days back about it being cooler and less humid than usual.

All I know to tell you, gc, is that in our area we know to stay out of the greenbean patch when it is wet because of the chance of brown rust. Actually, I remember my grandmother lamenting over the wet garden when she knew she needed to get out there to pick. She always said, "you don't galivant through the garden when it is wet." Funny, the little things one remembers.

Anyway, the local university extension service advises the same thing for our area. If the garden is wet because of recent rainfall I know to stay out. I wish that was the case at this moment. The wetness does seem to affect the more bushy plants in rows close together.

I suppose in your area the veggies are acclimated to the wet ground and not affected.

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I recently harvested the Onions.. And am about to grab some carrots.

We have been knee deep in Apricots and plums.

and next weekend is nectarines I think...

So far i have tons of tomatoes on the vines and not a single ripe one.

and peppers are blossomed but only a few fruits and not any of them rip.

We are having an unseasonably cool summer so my cots ripened late my peaches early and were really tiny.... and since I got the veggie garden in late it is all running late.

I did learn that you should never ever follow eggplant up with green beans in the same planter box, even if it is a year later. although the cucumbers are looking like they are going to run off with that planter box.

and the cantaloupes are just now setting fruit so I am thinking I will have cantaloupes by the end of august maybe.

I am trying to decide if I want to try for a fall garden too

as now that the onions are out and the carrots and cabbage are about to follow I will have one and 1/2 empty beds ready for another set of veggies.

This would be beets, turnips cabbage and lettuce, carrots and radishes.

Edited by leafytwiglet
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leafy, I'm planning on a fall garden here. I'm going to try my hand at growing some oriental veggies, leafy things. I'm also going to put more carrots down and some spinach down.

What about not going into the garden when it is wet, what do you do about that, you're a native, any ideas?

gc

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leafy, I'm planning on a fall garden here. I'm going to try my hand at growing some oriental veggies, leafy things. I'm also going to put more carrots down and some spinach down.

What about not going into the garden when it is wet, what do you do about that, you're a native, any ideas?

gc

Going in the garden when it is wet depends on the temperature.

If it is Cool like in the 60's or below you are okay.. if it is warm do not do it. This goes for watering too... never water after about four PM if you get the leaves wet they will get diseased. (Temperature also dictates this.. the cooler it is the safer everything is)

In California that is not as big a problem as the fog which gives my beans mosaic disease . I only plant bush beans now as they seem to be immune to it.

I no longer plant pole beans.. they usually just get beans on them and get it and die with me only getting maybe one or two messes of beans. I do miss my pole beans though as well they are so yummy!

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