Garden out and doing great

[Patriotic Stabilist]

I thinned my beets and was able to make 5 pints of pickled beets from the thinnings! I'm watering what is out there hoping they will make beets for slicing, these you could say are baby beets.

Went out and picked another 5 gallon bucket of beans from 1 row, so going to break those for canning tomorrow, then need to pick the other 3/4's length row. I may get my 30 to 40 quarts canned quickly. The weather is perfect and the bugs are just starting in things like spinach and cabbage. Minimal use of pesticides this year so far.

If all those tomatoes I see setting on produce I may be selling tomatoes out here at the side of the road.. I think its a combination of plenty of water, correct and enough fertilizer, apparently I didn't use enough. And of course the wonderful bees.

I would love to get up a 100 quarts of tomatoes like mom did, if I do I will have to buy more jars, but I don't mind.

Brussel sprouts are forming, they will be blanched and frozen, bell peppers are coming off sporadically. Using sage, cilantro, we love that stuff, and parsley.

Cukes are way behind. I need to dig into a hill of potatoes and see what we have, got to have some with these beans.

I hope the corn does well. With it and some beef from the meat market I hope to finish filling the freezers. We will be set for about a year.

 

[Patriotic Stabilist]

14 quarts of beans canned, 6 or more will be canned tonight. I hope to get about 60, then I will stop on beans.

Have a sink full of spinach to wash, share, cook, and freeze. It's pretty dirty needs quite a bit of washing.

 

[Patriotic Stabilist]

I've canned 40 quarts of green beans. Picked 2 5 gallon buckets yesterday and gave almost 1 whole one away to friends. Then 1 broke the other one yesterday and cooked them today. I filled 5 containers for the freezer and froze those, the rest we are having with dinner tonight. With guess what? Wonderful, gorgeous new red potatoes. Ohhhhh, they look so good, I ate one, delicious.

I just finished canning the last of the beets. They would keep wilting even though I watered them well, every 2nd day they started to wilt, so I just pulled them all and canned them. I now have 11 pints, would love to have more. Need to see if its to late to plant more.

Tonight we still have lettuce, I get bibb and it does way better then leaf lettuce it lasts longer and isn't so quick to bolt. Also bell peppers, banana peppers, zucchini, squash, and Texas sweet onions in a salad tonight with purchased tomatoes. I got my first tomato, picked it and brought it up, a couple of days before its ripe yet.

Cabbages are huge, next year need to stagger better otherwise they all come off at once. Cukes are just blooming, having trouble with them this year for some reason.

I think the bugs are going to get the brussel sprouts, I've dusted them a few times but I think they like it.

It is soooo dry I'm watering everyother day. At the duplex where we planted corn we were trying to water once a week, nope, some hadn't even germinated. So I bought a timer and set it to water every 72 hours, well yesterday I set it for now as it was super dry. Doesn't quite cover the whole garden so have to drive up and move it a couple times a week, have 2 sprinklers there, but at least I'm not sitting there for 4 hours waiting for it to water. The watermelon and cantaloupe had done nothing, they should grow now.

This morning, I watered all the fruit trees, potted flowers, and rose bushes. This drought here is beyond brutal. Unless we get a hurricane this summer I think we are in deep trouble. I'm also watering all the front yard, I think the back will die off. It's 300 foot across the front so I added a 120 ft hose. If I don't it will be nothing but a dust pit.

DD and I are heading to Canton Trade Days in the motorhome for 4 days, never been there, hubby is working on the newer rental but doesn't want to go to that anyway, we have never been. I think when I get back I'm going to have ripe tomatoes. The vines are loaded but with this heat more may not set on. It's near 90 in the day and 70 at night and its only April. I fear what the summer will bring.

We had a fire half mile from use that burned acreage, they kept a dozer and firetruck over there for a couple of days, through Wed. We drove by this evening and it was smoking and some of the piles are burning again. It was a mulch yard and also trees stacked up. I hope someone reports its burning again, lots of people drive back there and live. It's blowing away from us, thank goodness. It looks like they cleared a fire ring around it.

Next I need to start watering the foundation to prevent cracks, they are now warning us to do so.

I'm hearing now about a tropical depression, just what we need a hurricane, hope it doesn't develop into one and just stays a depression, we do get rain from those.

Ok, enough for today.

And yep the chickens are all fine. I didnlose one of the new ones last week, not hawks though, but I've searched everywhere, no carcass or anything. A real puzzle, but no more then that in the last 3 weeks.

We do have a neighbors big cat, but not sure how it would get in there, hummm.

 

[Patriotic Stabilist]

Also going to can green tomatoes, we love them in the winter, may do some tomorrow if they are big enough, if not will wait. I like quarts and pints of them, but may do all quarts this year. The wide mouth jars are the best for them.

 

[jinman]

Carolyn, while I am really jealous of your garden success, there is no way I would be able to devote the time to a big garden this year. The house additions are very time consuming even though I have a contractor. Our onions are doing extremely well (yellow, wihite, purple) and the asparagus crowns I planted three weeks ago are sprouting and shooting up small spears. My wife's planting of cucumbers is growing well (9 hills) and my tomatoes and peppers of several varieties are beginning to show signs of rooting and growing rapidly. That's all the garden we will have this year. Next year I will plant a full garden. Listening to you talk of pickled beets, fresh snapped green beans, and your leaf crops sure does make my mouth water.:licking:

 

[Patriotic Stabilist]

Today 7 pints of green tomatoes canned and 7 quarts, just finishing up. They are real easy to do.

In the winter, drain in a colander, dip in flour and fry. They are not as firm as they are from fresh ones but they are still delicious.

Next will be carrots. then nothing else canned till tomatoes, I think a week or two they will be producing enough to can also, maybe two weeks but soon.

I gave my back neighbor a huge bag of green beans I broke last night. They can eat off them, freeze them, or can them. Tomorrow a cabbage, they are getting huge, peppers, zucchini, and squash. I share with the neighbors when I have more then I can use.

 

[ShenandoahJoe]

I'm enjoying reading your posts. You're about a month ahead of me, so they're like a reminder of what chores I'm forgetting.

 

[Patriotic Stabilist]

I may have one more picking of green beans. I did one the other day and it surprised me that there were that many. Then I saw blooms again, was going to pull them but after that thought I would wait and see.

I cleaned up the cabbages I've cut, pulled the rest of the spinach and bibb lettuce, it was getting strong.

I'm having to water every day here. I've never seen it like this this early in the year.

Hubby even put soaker hoses all the way around the house, something else we've never done but we don't want any cracked foundations. We had a tree do a place on one side and he chipped through the driveway, dug down and put a root barrier in. Should have been done way before, but time is a factor.

My tomatoes are starting to ripen, I'm guessing canning tomatoes this week or the next. I sure hope I get a lot.

Hubby went to the other place and the said the first corn we planted is above the knee now so corn one day, he changed the watering scheme there. We hooked up a double timer for that garden. We lost some cantaloupes and watermelon but I think we have enough.

I digress:

If anyones wife likes to bake bread I bought a neat cookbook, ordered it online. It's to bake whole wheat bread, has a lot of good information and helped me to successfully make softer, delicious whole wheat bread. However, I also order wheat from Lehman's, just started this year, and got a NutriMill to grind it with. Great machine. I also grind popcorn in it to make cornbread, delicious. By the way if you are into it the grain is non GMO and organic, the type is Prairie Gold Wheat Berries.5 My favorite receipe is on page 108 for 2 loaves. I would suggest reading the book first, it explains everything all along the way, a wonderful book. I ordered dough enchancer, helps keep it fresh and wheat gluten, but get my yeast at Sam's in the 1 pound package, its instant dry yeast.

This recipe has no eggs or milk in it. Just water, honey, flour, canola oil, enchancer, gluten, and yeast. There are other variations in the book.

The book is called "No More Bricks" by Lori Viets

It has 4 master recipes and over 30 simple variations for whole wheat. With the summer heat I can make it pretty fast. Maybe 20 minutes to make the dough, 30 outside on the patio table for first rise and let rest 10 minutes, back out for second rise then bake. I don't try to raise it inside in the summer.

 

[Patriotic Stabilist]

Next year I'm trying all heirloom seeds so I can save and replant. I have a ton of small pots to start them out in, I saved them. I looked at Home Depot the other day and half the plants were $2.98 EACH! I bought most of mine at the feed store.

My chickens are doing good, after netting lost no more and have 14 Rhode Island Reds, I'm thinking dressing them out the end of the month.

I bought 10 barred rocks and lost 2. I couldn't figure out how so set out there one day and watched. At that time they were small and the bigger chickens were after them. I finally realized they were small enough they squeezed out the gate when scared and lo and behold a big hawk was sitting up in the tree. He must have waited and grabbed them. I fixed that and lost no more. But man what a job this year.

I'm getting ready to start them on some type of finishing grain as this starter feed is medicated and I want it to get out of their system.

If you read about battery chickens and how eggs and chickens are produced its sickening. I think I'm getting to be wierd about this stuff. Same with white bread. They basically mill out all the nutrients and only put a handfull back. I do buy white flour but I buy Hodgson's that is milled wheat only, not enriched, bromaded or anything, just ground wheat. Or Bob's Red Mill, but I like Hodgsons best.

 

[Patriotic Stabilist]

Tomatoes have started so I canned 7 quarts last night.

DD is in the hospital, she has ulcers. She is mentally challenged and has been in bad pain for some time and wanted more and more painkillers. Of course this caused her even more problems. I tried to explain to her but she just wouldn't listen. So now she has to deal with more issues.

Anyway, she will be ok, hopefully we find what is causing her low potassium, man can that make you crazy when its real low. Watch out for that in the elderly, you may think something is mentally wrong and it might be potassium. I have been researching, who knew?

I had all these beautiful tomatoes starting to come off and I'm not losing them soooo, had that batch done by 11 last night. I hope I get a lot of them for canning, juice, and spaghetti sauce too.

And I think additional watering my green beans has revived them, looks like I might get another batch. Yummy

 

[jinman]

Carolyn, I'm sorry to hear about your daughter. I hope she heals quickly and they can find an alternative for her pain medicine that is kinder to her stomach. I have the opposite problem with potassium. Garden vegetables such as tomatoes and squash are high in potassium as are bananas. I also use a salt substitute that is primarily potassium chloride instead of the normal sodium chloride salt. My potassium count is normally pretty high when I get blood work done.

I'm really jealous of your tomatoes. We have a very small/limited garden this year with tomatoes, onions, peppers, and cucumbers. We also have 1st year and 2nd year growth asparagus doing great. We don't harvest anything off the asparagus, but it does require care to get the best growing results for next year when I hope to harvest some spears.

Last weekend I put the tiller on my tractor and tilled all of the garden where nothing but weeds was growing. The tractor tiller made short work of what would have been a tedius job with my little Mantis-style tiller. On Monday, Kathy and I put down landscape fabric over the rows of tomatoes and peppers. Then we came back with mulch and mulched around each plant. So now, we have our soaker hoses under the landscape fabric and mulch on top. That should really help keep the soil moist and soft and the weeds away. I found some old rolls of tar paper and we rolled it out between rows to control weeds. It will also shed rain water towards the plants. All our plants seem to have established a good root system and are starting a growth spurt.

Like you, I hate going to the store and buying bedding vegetables for $3.50 or more each. If something happens to a few of those, you are out a lot of money in a hurry. I go to a local nursery and buy flats of plants for around $10 each. That way lost plants are not so painful. I also think smaller plants transplant easier and will root quicker than larger plants that always seem to have transplant shock.

Edit: I added a photo of my little garden showing our row cover and NO WEEDS. YEA!!!

 

[jimmyj]

I just wanted to say that I really enjoy this thread about the gardening. We are getting going here in the north and I can't wait. I am sorry that DD is not feeling well, I had ulcers as a teen but thankfully out grew them. I wish her the best.

 

[Patriotic Stabilist]

Beautiful, wonderful, blessed rain. I don't know how long it will last but its coming down in good measure and I don't even see puddles. It's now 65 which feels so good too.

Anything is welcome, no complaint, but if it rained like this all night we would still be short.

I can almost see the grass turning green while its raining.

Got home in time to stow the patio umbrella, lock up the chicks, and my scared of thunderstorm dog.

The line looked really severe on the weatherbug, but so far minimal wind and not much thunder.

I am a VERY happy person. This should help that inch we had in January.

They said last night we have only had 6 inches of rain here since last October, no wonder we are under a severe fire warning.

 

[Patriotic Stabilist]

What do you mean little garden? That is a beauty. Mine was weed free for a long time, but now as I'm pulling stuff its getting weedy as we are not tilling out there.

This rain should help my beans, we can water but nothing like plain old rainshowers.

I need to get pictures of our sweet corn when I run up to the other garden this weekend. Should be corn soon, hope its raining up there too.

 

[Patriotic Stabilist]

The garden is going well. I have canned 14 quarts of tomatoes so far. I have a patio table full of ripening tomatoes. I'm picking them before quite ripe. I plan on near 100 quarts. But I want a lot of juice too. I found one lonely jar of tomato juice left from 2009, its in the fridge for hubby. I need to let the tomatoes get dead ripe before I make juice, I really want to do my tomatoes first, if I have to I can make some of it into juice. I have a really neat juicer I bought that makes juice making easy.

Last year my garden did poorly. I did have 13 quarts of tomatoes left so have 27 quarts. I'm hoping to can spaghetti sauce, chili, and vegetable soup. I like to have ready made items on the shelves too. Also I canned chicken breast and it makes the best chicken salad I've ever eaten. I'm going to the fish market one day, need to find out when their fish comes in fresh and get some tuna to can. I've read that it is so much better then the boughten tuna. One day at a thrift store I found some 1/2 pint jars, never seen them before, will put the tuna in them.

My husband gets a kick out of me, but I just have feelings about stuff and this year its just not good for some reason. I feel compelled to have plenty of food back. Let's hope I'm just being a silly old woman, but my feelings usually are pretty good even though he doesn't want to admit it.

The flooding is wiping out thousands of acres of some of our most productive cropland. In Arkansas they have already lost 1/2 the nations rice crop, imagine half of our total crop. The droughts are not over, here we finally got
,6 of an inch, it was a Godsend for sure. Revived my green beans, yesterday I got a 5 gallon bucket and half of another, shared with the neighbors and cooked up a bunch with new potatoes. Hubby loves them, I swear he could eat them daily. The tornadoes in Miss, Ala, and Lou destroyed chicken farmers and they lost millions upon millions of chickens plus the production capability. It will take time to restore all this. And then on top of that the worlds food supply was way down anyway because of drought, floods, and disease. So it cannot spell lower prices for sure. I don't expect shortages unless the farmers do like the pecan farmers did. Chinese buyers came in and bought out the production of whole pecan orchards, are they called orchards? That's why pecans are skyhigh, I guess the chinese used to love walnuts but now its pecans. So I think we can buy food its just going to be very expensive.

Did you know I read that all groceries have instituted the "just in time" inventory system the Japanese championed, now they say grocery stores have only a 3 day supply on hand. So if something seriously disrupts the supply chain, we can easily be in trouble.

And I've been able to reduce our grocery bill so far this month to $200. I fully expect it to be $300 to $400 but I would just like the see if I can get it lower, kind of a challenge I suppose you would say. I was always a Type A when working and I just need something to be a challenge so this kind of thing is. Yeah, kind of sad, to have to look for challenges to keep doing stuff.

Our corn at the duplex is tasseling hubby said and looking good. He said the cantaloupe and watermelon vines are looking good also. I now have people stopping by here, guys, wanting to know what I'm doing to have a garden like this. My hubby gets credit this year for the application of 13 13 13 fertilizer and lime, what a huge huge difference its made. I have even given them some of my produce. If I wanted I imagine I could sell it out here, but you never know free is always better. This one guy has been by a couple of times, he is wanting fresh stuff and trying to raise it without much success, I kind of feel sorry for him. He said he lost all his squash, mine haven't done great this year but enough. He asked if got more beans this week could he have some, I said sure. But its about the end of them I would think. The new folks that moved in across the road sent a thank you card for the veggies. The lady behind me canned beans from these plants and I gave big bags to a tenant and an elderly neighbor up there. We are getting bumper crops of most of it.

 

[jimmyj]

Your posts always make me hungry!

I agree with lot's of your comments about crop production, supply chain risks, food cost escalation and so on. I work in the pet food industry and watching the prices go up up up has been insane - people food is the exacyt same. It's scary that here in the great white north there isn't even one fruit processing plant any more. They are cutting down orchards because apples are cheaper from China. How the heck can an apple be cheaper from half way around the world for goodness sakes???

I always ponder "fate" as we plant our gardens - how would people with no gardens fare if there was a huge flood or disater around here. I can't imagine living in a condo with no ability to get my own water, food or heat. Think about all those people in Japan who lost all they had, except their hunger and need for shelter and safety. Crazy.

Anyhow, thanks for keeping the updates coming. We planted a lot yesterday and my mouth is watering already! We are only eating lettuce, chives and asparagus so far but the 'maters are in the ground now so we're about 60 days from our first fresh ones.

 

[Patriotic Stabilist]

Ok, guys I am being bad.

I have people stopping wanting me to sell them produce and asking if I have eggs. People are desperate for good food. I told them not this year. Hubby said don't even sell one or you will get mobbed. So I give people 3 or 4 and tell them to enjoy. Hard not to do with a wagon full of tomatoes.

We are rural but about 4 miles away there are probably 80k to 100000 people, I can only imagine if word got around.

Here is a picture of tomatoes. The first table is ready to can, the second will be in a day or two.

I'm being bad:laughing: These will can 14 quarts for sure and possibly 21.

 

[Patriotic Stabilist]

Canned 21 quarts on second cooking now. I still have half a table of tomatoes out there as they weren't quite ripe enough. Some are so big 3 will fill a big mouth jar.

 

[ShenandoahJoe]

And then on top of that the worlds food supply was way down anyway because of drought, floods, and disease.

...and the world's supply of eaters is going up every year.

 

[jinman]

Canned 21 quarts on second cooking now. I still have half a table of tomatoes out there as they weren't quite ripe enough. Some are so big 3 will fill a big mouth jar.

Carolyn, are those really tomatoes or alien PODs? Don't turn your back on them. You just never know. . . :laughing: