henless' garden, 2018

digitS' said:

I was about to like your post, Henless. Even the sunflowers sadly blowing down ... then, I got to that weather report of misery ..!

I'm one who doesn't like bread and butter pickles. But, I'm pleased that you are planning to have more cucumbers for the fall.

Even here, the spring-planted vines begin to play out before the fall frost. There are a few more planted in the onions right now. Room for them is just a matter of pulling the onions near the cucumbers, first. They won't have much of a season but should produce a few cukes. Fresh! About the time when they can be appreciated .

Steve
now able to eat a cucumber everyday

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i like all sorts of different kinds of pickles or cucumbers.

there seem to be some varieties that will grow all season for us. the burpees we've had grow and produce from the end of June until frosts and they're huge if we don't get them picked at the size we like them. they do need enough water to keep them going. this year we are growing just the pickling ones which are smaller and as of yet they're still going. i'm almost afraid to look out there and see how many are ready to pick.

I'm just growing favorites this year.

The first with a cucumber was Talladega. Those might be a good choice for southern gardeners. It was a good choice for me .

Muncher (Biet Alpha type) showed up a few days later. Really like those and they are just about the right size for a "single serving" ... and to hold with the steering wheel while rolling down a country road.

We even had 2 Lemon cukes. They usually grow nothing but vines before flowering profusely and setting fruit. Very hot weather must have encouraged them to start early.

Steve

I'm over the top in lemon cucumbers. I find I have to peel them, and then the insides are delish!!

digitS' said:

I'm one who doesn't like bread and butter pickles. But, I'm pleased that you are planning to have more cucumbers for the fall.

Even here, the spring-planted vines begin to play out before the fall frost. There are a few more planted in the onions right now. Room for them is just a matter of pulling the onions near the cucumbers, first. They won't have much of a season but should produce a few cukes. Fresh! About the time when they can be appreciated .

Steve
now able to eat a cucumber everyday

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My daughter keeps after me to make her some dill pickles. I told her when I have enough b&b pickles I would, lol. The next batch of cucumbers I plan on making sweet relish to put in tuna & egg salad. I've got about 10 cukes as of this morning.

baymule said:

We're in hunker down mode, hugging up on us some Air Conditioning! LOL I was late getting my garden going, have green tomatoes, purple hull peas are starting to bloom and corn that is tasseling now. My cucumbers are blooming! I get up early and am out watering the garden at daybreak. It's HOT!

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Isn't it just awful? I got a text from KTAL that Tyler tied a record high heat yesterday, and broke a 122 yr high record a couple days ago. I was out this morning a little after 6am to do some garden chores. If you don't get it done early, it don't get done.

flowerbug said:

sometimes there will a draft saved or you can even save one once in a while if it is a longer post (the little disk icon).

if you have a lot of power issues a small UPS is well worth the $. it gives you enough time to save things and shut down when the power goes out. i've had mine here for years and it's saved me troubles for sure, especially when the power does a lot of flickering on and off during storms. in a pinch, now with the new more efficient LED lights i can also use it to run some lights if the power is off and we need to do something at night.

gardens look great!

sunflowers are so beautiful.

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I agree. The sunflowers are pretty and the bees just love them! I had to tie up my Maximilian Suns this morning so that we could mow around them. They haven't started blooming yet, but are getting very tall.

We really don't have a lot of power outages. This one just happened at a bad time. Thanks for the info, I will check it out.

murphysranch said:

I'm over the top in lemon cucumbers. I find I have to peel them, and then the insides are delish!!

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I've never had a lemon cucumber. Are they for fresh eating only?


Spent about 3 hours in the garden this morning. Did a lot of weeding, mostly getting weeds out of the cinder blocks. I so want to pour concrete in the holes to fill them up. I plan on doing just that once we move (if we ever do!). Also pulled out the tomato roots and cut down the sunflowers that had finished blooming. Pulled up all my kale but 1 plant. I had wanted it to go to seed, but the flower stalks dry out before it seeds. Maybe the last one will flower and set seeds.

Lemon cucumbers are a pest. I think they come in the hay, the horses scatter them about. They vine like mad, neither the sheep or horses eat the vines and I don't care for the lemon cucumbers. We put horse manure in the garden and I have to stay vigilant to keep them pulled up.

Pests?

I didn't know that they would even volunteer! @baymule , could they be those thorny gherkins, instead?

The only problem that I have had with lemon cucumbers was thinking that I should wait to harvest them until they look like lemons. They get rather seedy by that time. Now, I just look for "roundness" and they are still green ... or, just turning yellow.

Steve

Bay goats are very good at eating vines, so I read. They have little minis perfect size for your granddaughters.

Nyboy said:

Bay goats are very good at eating vines, so I read. They have little minis perfect size for your granddaughters.

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Me thinks that you missed reading the part that reads ... goats are best when they are invited to a BBQ as the guest of honor. This according to our daughter when she was 5 years old. She loved Billy the Kid when he was very young, By 3 months of age he started to knock her down and stand on top of her. By 6 months old, he became even more unkind. Daughter heard that we were planning a bbq for visitors from many countries. She volunteered "BBQ BillY' and helped catch him, then make him smile from ear to ear, marinade him, then BBQ him and finally eat 2 helpings.

Bob you have a smart daughter

I am quite happy with my sheep!