sparkles2307 said:
Funny, I spent about an hour last night and another half hour this morning going thru the tomatoes in Baker Creek
I can't wait to start getting the 2011 catalogs!
The squash are piled up in the garden cart in my garage.... till I get more room in the crawl space or can them. I got a pressure cooker, yay!
The tomatoes were beautiful! My lattice plating aide made for straight rows with nice plant spacing, and I noticed that (I dont believe in thinning) the seedlings seemed to all meld into one plant after a while. The Hillbilly Potato Leaf had lots of plants but I only got one tomato. Used it for some nice yellow salsa. I got LOTS of purple cherokee and Japanese Trifelle Black. I can't remember the other varieties, but lets just say that its mid-november and I just used the last fresh ones that I ripened in the house this week. I had lots. I have many many quarts of canned tomatoes, we will get thru till next spring
I noticed that the summer squash plants molded badly this year. I think it was becuase they were so thickly planted....no sunshine ever got thru the canopy to dry the ground at all, and there was lots of heavy white mold on the stalks. Didnt affect the harvest, We had so many I was just tossing them to the chickens because we couldnt eat them fast enough.
For some reason, my cucumbers always do poorly. I mean, we get enough to eat fresh, but not even close to enough to pickle. The plants start out great, then the leave get all curled and brown, really dry looking, but its always really wet and warm here, its very weird.
We planted the corn in the wrong end of the garden. Theres a gentle slope, and at the bottom the soil compacts and the sun doesnt bake the ground all day. The corn never did produce. Disappointing for sure. When its at the top of the garden it does really well. But, I used the top for my tomatoes this year.
The watermellon was a flop. I used a realyl long growing variety, not suited for our summer length. We got two that ripened, and the ducks ate the rest. I know for a fact that the neighbors get so many canteloupe-type melons that they throw piles of them to the deer, so we CAN grow melons here....I just have to find one that works and that I LIKE.
I got about 1 cup of raspberries from my 2nd year stalks and 6 gooseberries from the plant I put in on Mother's Day. This spring before they wake up I'm moving them out of the garden and into special berry-beds.
The lettuce, altho it made for pretty pictures, was terrible. The red bolted too fast, and the green mini-head type rotted right away. I'm not doing lettuce next year, strictly spinach. We dont care much for lettuce anyway.
The peas were great.
Um, what else did I plant...... oh, all the exotic melons failed terribly, so I think I need to talk to one of the local Amish farmers and get seeds from them for melons.
The End
. Gosh, it is nearly 50 years! Anyway, Shumway began acquiring other seed companies. Then they must have sort of imploded because Jung's bought them. That's another company that I've been ordering seed from just about forever.
I just signed up for the High Mowing Organic Seed, Pinetree, and Seeds of Change Catalogs. I have another suggestion for potatoe growers: http://www.woodprairie.com/ Looks like Johnny's doesn't have their 2011 catalog out yet.
