What Did You Do In The Garden?

@ducks4you wish you were closer you could have what are left of ours. i'm probably going to be putting up 15-20 quarts of dill pickles this morning. i fell asleep for a while yesterday evening so when i woke up from that nap later i scrubbed them so they're ready to go this morning.

me, too

ducks4you said:

me, too

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i put up 19 quarts of pickles and rescued the flaws and rejects for a bowl of refridgerator pickles.

i'm sad today from damage from the rains yesterday. i know it rained pretty hard (dark red on the radar means near hailstorm conditions), but i didn't think of going out and checking the gardens afterwards.

was going to take pictures as things were looking pretty nice finally with all the plants getting bigger and filling in.

the pepper patch looks like a drunk went through and randomly kicked plants over and some of my bean plants broke right off. not sure what will recover...

So sorry to hear that flowerbug. I suppose covering the garden wouldn't work since the rain would just smash everything down?

Mary

ninnymary said:

So sorry to hear that flowerbug. I suppose covering the garden wouldn't work since the rain would just smash everything down?

Mary

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it's never happened before in the years growing peppers here so i'd never thought of it being an issue. i've also not had beans break off like this. so a bit of a fluke storm is my read on the situation. way too many gardens to think of covering.

a few years ago we had severe hail storm that punched holes through all the squash, cucumbers and shredded some plants, but it didn't break anything or knock them over. also years ago we had a small tornado come through 100-200yards away and that didn't do anything to the gardens or house at all for damage.

i'm in a much better mood today. it is just how life goes and we get on. a few hours in the gardens can cure a lot of my blues.

Sorry to hear about the damage, @flowerbug . I watched those storms weaken as they passed over us, then build up strength again as they headed your way.

About 5 years ago, I went to my rural garden in May, to check on the garlic patch (which was the only thing growing at the time). The garden was unfenced, and deer had been trampling my garlic earlier... so I placed the PVC cages that I use for peppers over the garlic, to keep the deer out. When I returned, I found all of the cages turned over, and several missing. My first assumption was vandals, but as I was replacing the cages, I saw one about 10 feet up, stuck in a tree. Looking further, I found another stuck in a tree, and one more in the field behind the trees. When I talked to the property owner, it turns out that a small tornado had gone through... which thankfully only pulled off some of their shingles, and threw my cages around.

Zeedman said:

Sorry to hear about the damage, @flowerbug . I watched those storms weaken as they passed over us, then build up strength again as they headed your way.

About 5 years ago, I went to my rural garden in May, to check on the garlic patch (which was the only thing growing at the time). The garden was unfenced, and deer had been trampling my garlic earlier... so I placed the PVC cages that I use for peppers over the garlic, to keep the deer out. When I returned, I found all of the cages turned over, and several missing. My first assumption was vandals, but as I was replacing the cages, I saw one about 10 feet up, stuck in a tree. Looking further, I found another stuck in a tree, and one more in the field behind the trees. When I talked to the property owner, it turns out that a small tornado had gone through... which thankfully only pulled off some of their shingles, and threw my cages around.

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they were pop up storms that formed just a few miles away. nothing else on the radar for miles otherwise. just the luck of the draw that day... considering we are in a lower spot of a flat valley it's not often storms form right before they get to us, usually it is the other way around where storms fade, split, go around, etc.

the tornado was strong enough to do damage to neighbors houses and take two garages off the ends of others... i didn't see, hear it or feel the pressure change, but it was a very heavy rain from all directions, the power went out, then after a few minutes and the worst of it was over i looked out the window and saw that the neighbor's garage was gone. then we had sirens for hours as people took stock of the damage.

i'd made 20something pints of strawberry freezer jam just before this happened and because i couldn't put it in the freezer for days it didn't work out so several days later when the power came back on i made another 20something pints to put up.

We had the Best rain yesterday! Light and heavy, intermittant, no great winds and great soaking!
No real work outside yesterday, exCEPT I finally removed the iris from the south side of the cement cistern AND hand removed the poison ivy. I didn't get a rash AND I pulled out what I could. The roots that had dug themselves under the cistern were HEAVILY soaked with D-2, after I dug down a few inches, then covered with cardboard and covered with dirt.
I transplanted one volunteer and 4 others still in their original pots.
Starting to harvest BIG Amish Romas and a couple of beefsteak.
Ya know, the harvest starts as a trickle, then a stream then, all of the suddent there are red tomatoes everywhere!
The weather is FINALLY back to our normal, highs in the upper 70's or mid 80's, nights 70's, which tomatoes really like.
I think it will be a good year.
I have about 20 jars in the kitchen ready to can.

Did most of your beans and peppers recover, @flowerbug ? I think of water as a healing factor. It's the infrequent experience of summer rain that leads me to this attitude. I remember a hailstorm when I was just beginning to use Dad's garden and it was too early to cause me any real problem.

It pounded the fruit trees so hard that several branches had scars on the upper surface from then on ... but this was hail and spring.

I pulled out the peas. It wasn't the best season for them. And, it was short but not really short enuf.

Bean seed was planted in place of the peas and I at one time thought that I could do that anytime during July. Twice sowing during the last week didn't work. Frost took the plants out before the beans were ready for harvest. Well ... here it is the 23rd .. .

ducks4you said:

Ya know, the harvest starts as a trickle,

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So much a trickle at the moment. Days and days with just enough tomatoes to eat outdoors, if'n I wanted to. Many of the tomatoes are are so far from ripe that I can't identify them.

Steve
who had his first Coyote, this morning. ! Had 4 of the little cherries in a single mouthful, in fact

I planted Coyote this year because of you Steve.
It's a biggish plant, compared to the others.

I put all of my (few) tomatoes along a cattle panel so they could be tied up as they grew.
It seems my phantom garden partner has not been doing this and they are as sprawly as ever.

Darned phantom gardener!