2025 gardens

[DJ54]

How does someone drive away with that many pumpkins? That theft was well planned out.

Yes it would. He stated they were about the size of a bushel basket each. I'm thinking 300 would take several trucks, and maybe trailers to haul that many, that size out. Yeah, they've been watching it for a while.

 

[CloverKnollFarms]

Ended up with 221 pumpkins. Some culls, but 221 that could sell. That was from 236 vines.

My buddy from Louisville harvested 65, from 1500 vines.

Not a great year for pumpkins

 

[MossRoad]

We had a freeze predicted for last night, so I picked my hot pepper garden yesterday morning, cleaned and sliced, then dehydrated out in the shed for about 36 hours. I grind them up in a food processor to make chili death powder. I've been doing this for about 20 years.

Here's a picture of the peppers just rinsed. I may have it made into a jigsaw puzzle.

(click it a couple times to enlarge)

 

[MossRoad]

Forgot to mention....

Habaneros, jalapeños, Hungarian hot, cayenne and Tai hot chilis.

 

[sixdogs]

We had a freeze predicted for last night, so I picked my hot pepper garden yesterday morning, cleaned and sliced, then dehydrated out in the shed for about 36 hours. I grind them up in a food processor to make chili death powder. I've been doing this for about 20 years.

Here's a picture of the peppers just rinsed. I may have it made into a jigsaw puzzle.

(click it a couple times to enlarge)

View attachment 4307517

Those are too hot for me but sure good looking.

 

[sixdogs]

We had a terrible tomato season this year. Great for sweet corn, bad for most else. Our 95 degree weather, blasting sun and drought at the wrong time made it difficult for plants to set fruit and cracked what tomatoes did get started. Many of those started to rot.

Normally, we get maybe 400 lbs of fruit from 11 plants and this year got maybe 100 lbs from 13 plants. The ones that did make it weren't as good eating as better years. One thing we did notice is the smallish varieties like Juliette did exceptionally well. Fruit was smaller but nearly as prolific as other years and no cracks or disease. We've always had good luck with Juliette and nothing seems to bother it. I think 73 days.

Juliette is hard to find but Fedco in Maine has it.

 

[CloverKnollFarms]

Forgot to mention....

Habaneros, jalapeños, Hungarian hot, cayenne and Tai hot chilis.

Do you ever overwinter those plants, in dormancy? I'm trying that this year.

 

[Oaktree]

Not a great year for pumpkins

Not a great year for squash either. Think I got 3 from 5 vines.

We had a freeze predicted for last night, so I picked my hot pepper garden yesterday morning, cleaned and sliced, then dehydrated out in the shed for about 36 hours. I grind them up in a food processor to make chili death powder. I've been doing this for about 20 years.

Wish I could grow hot peppers here, but it's too cold, and the growing season's too short. Some years (this was one of them) can't even do sweet peppers. None of the ones I put in even blossomed, let alone had peppers on them. Probably ought to build a small greenhouse.

We had a terrible tomato season this year. Great for sweet corn, bad for most else. Our 95 degree weather, blasting sun and drought at the wrong time made it difficult for plants to set fruit and cracked what tomatoes did get started. Many of those started to rot.

Tomatoes did OK here, just the right amount; not too many, not too few. The broccoli did very well this year. Usually only get one, maybe 2 cuttings. This year we were cutting broccoli up until a couple weeks ago. Cukes also did very well.
Hardly got any potatoes.

 

[kenmbz]

We got hit with army worms on the tomatoes, about half the crop was mangled.
Considering it's October , we have more blackberries coming , a month past normal.

Last of the produce as we had a hard freeze

 

[MossRoad]

Do you ever overwinter those plants, in dormancy? I'm trying that this year.

Nope. Not worth it to me, as I only plant about two each of 5-6 different species. I just pick them up from the local mom and pop greenhouse each spring. But I'm guessing you could overwinter them indoors. They still had flowers on them two days ago. My only problem with plants indoors is I always seem to get red aphids.

Our greenhouse isn't heated, so things will freeze solid out there in winter as well.

I could save the seeds and start them myself indoors in late winter, and I may start doing that once I retire in about 19 months (not that I'm counting ).

 

[MossRoad]

We got hit with army worms on the tomatoes, about half the crop was mangled.
Considering it's October , we have more blackberries coming , a month past normal.
View attachment 4307818

View attachment 4307819

Last of the produce as we had a hard freeze

I picked a few Fall Gold raspberries in our yard yesterday while burning tax papers. Saw some wild strawberries in the grass as well.

 

[MossRoad]

We had a freeze predicted for last night, so I picked my hot pepper garden yesterday morning, cleaned and sliced, then dehydrated out in the shed for about 36 hours. I grind them up in a food processor to make chili death powder. I've been doing this for about 20 years.

Here's a picture of the peppers just rinsed. I may have it made into a jigsaw puzzle.

(click it a couple times to enlarge)

View attachment 4307517

Ended up with a plate of dried peppers, about a ziplock gallon bag worth.

I'll grind them in the food processor outside with a respirator in the near future. The first time I did it in the kitchen, and when I took the lid off the food processor, it was like weaponized chili powder immediately in the air, I started coughing and gagging, my eyes watering, snot coming out my nose, etc... I was laughing pretty hard while I was crying.

 

[masseyrider]

Ended up with a plate of dried peppers, about a ziplock gallon bag worth.

View attachment 4307883

View attachment 4307884

I'll grind them in the food processor outside with a respirator in the near future. The first time I did it in the kitchen, and when I took the lid off the food processor, it was like weaponized chili powder immediately in the air, I started coughing and gagging, my eyes watering, snot coming out my nose, etc... I was laughing pretty hard while I was crying.

And after you rubbed your eye you went for a pee before washing your hands.

 

[MossRoad]

uh... no