What Did You Do In The Garden?

[Zeedman]

Picking a lot of green beans, yardlong beans, cucumbers, okra, and bitter melon. The garden has become a jungle, with barely room to move. Which is just the way I like it... deer can (and do) nibble anything which grows through the fence, but there is nowhere open enough for them to jump in.

"WI 5207" cucumbers & "Joy" luffa. This is the first time the cukes have ever reached the top of their 6' trellis. I expected the luffa to overrun them where they meet halfway down the row, but the cukes have dominated.

One of the bean tunnels: "Bird Egg #3", "Gigandes" runner, and "Emerite" snap beans (right); "Madagascar" limas and "Long White" bitter melon (left).

The "Grandma Gina" pole beans (from @heirloomgal ) are monsters; I had thought the heat from the pole building might be too much for them, but they are actually shading the building. Lots of pods, but with only 4-5 weeks left before our average frost, dry seed is a gamble at this point. "Galante" yardlongs at the end of the row flowered later, but will likely ripen first.

Nothing little about "Little Greenseed" pumpkins this year, I have to cut off leaves & some vines to get in for the pollinations... and they are spreading into the yardlong trellis, and through the fence. On the far end, the "suddenly pole" bean "Uzice" is overrunning the row of chard next to it.

All members of the gourd family have made up for the late start. Soybeans have mostly caught up. All beans have pods & will likely get at least some dry seeds, but a few (such as "Blue Marbutt") only began flowering recently. But I picked the first dry seed yesterday; two pods of "Takara Early" adzuki beans.

 

[flowerbug]

... But I picked the first dry seed yesterday; two pods of "Takara Early" adzuki beans.
View attachment 51616

wow! those are huge compared to what i've grown here so far. this year i think i have much nicer plants than last year but i will still doubt the seeds will make it to even half that size of those in the picture. mine are normally just a few mm across and maybe if i'm lucky a few will reach 4mm.

 

[Zeedman]

wow! those are huge compared to what i've grown here so far. this year i think i have much nicer plants than last year but i will still doubt the seeds will make it to even half that size of those in the picture. mine are normally just a few mm across and maybe if i'm lucky a few will reach 4mm.

The adzuki were originally supposed to go in the ground; but mice decimated them once, so they are growing in my "sanctuary pots" instead, on a deck out of reach. There are 4 plants per pot, and they seem to like pot culture. But the pods & seeds are smaller than they appear to be in the photos. Those pods are 1/4" wide max.

 

[flowerbug]

going to be another busy day, have to check on the tomatoes and then check on the beans for some dry pods, then canning the rest of the day.

supposed to be hot too the next few days and chances of rain so being inside working on tomatoes will be a good way to spend the afternoon instead of reading/riting/rithmatic...

 

[flowerbug]

i did get tomatoes picked through and then got going on the dry bean harvest of pods that were ready enough to come in. i ran out of energy and time - especially as it got hotter so i did not finish everything but i did go through the various gardens to make sure the most important beans were checked for pods.

then it was canning tomatoes time and we did two batches and finished before midnight. i'm glad to say that my feet, ankles, knee and lower back all felt much better that it wasn't as long as a marathon day as we did last Friday.

i fell asleep about 1;30am and slept like a rock. Mom said there was a lot of thunder and lightning but i only saw some flashes as i was falling asleep. didn't hear a thing until i woke up this morning. in the past i was a pretty light sleeper but i don't think that is happening as much any more. once i'm out, i'm really out. could be related to snoring...

today will be light stuff (sorting through dry bean pods, burying tomato scraps and cooking pancakes for brunch). reading too perhaps.

 

[Phaedra]

Harvesting some veggies for dinner ~

 

[Zeedman]

Went outside after dark yesterday, to rinse out some buckets - and saw that I had left the garden gate open. And a rabbit running out!!! This is the 2nd time I've left the gate open, the last time was over-night. To judge by the occasional rustling today (and some damage too high for a mouse) I think a rabbit has taken up residence there & is quite happy in my green pantry. I need to borrow someone's cat, to serve an eviction notice.

 

[flowerbug]

picked a perfect melon this morning after burying the tomato trimmings from yesterday's canning. also picked a few small onions to go in the stuffed peppers.

other than that i was out there giving tours for a bit and wandering around.

i did notice one tomato with some gnawing taken out of it but i didn't get back out there today to remove that one so perhaps the critter will finish it off tonight. was hoping they were done with that, but i guess not. i may do some picking and canning tomorrow to finish what jars i have left to use up and then i have to decide if i want to buy more or use pints or what...

 

[digitS']

Having a mix of galia and cantaloupe with breakfast -- it's melon season! (A friend also gave us a yellow watermelon from her family's garden nearer @bobm and @Rhodie Ranch 's neck of the woods!)

Yesterday in the garden was the now typical harvest snatch and then run from the sprinklers. Luckily, it was again a quiet morning with little wind. It's a hard for me to understand: what has happened to the near constant SW wind out there? It's been replaced by a gentler NE breeze and record heat.

I think of myself as accustomed to August hot weather but I'm not accustomed to the highest daily average on record (140 years)!

@Zeedman , throwing rocks at Benjamin Bunny probably makes little difference to the ignorant clod, just for your information. It does release some gardener frustration, however.

Yes, I have discovered several chewed tomatoes in the patch, @flowerbug . The randomly tossed vines from the recent hailstorm winds are probably very much to the liking of the neighborhood voles. The Wiley Coyote remedy might be at hand but it may not be so much of a good thing this year. He is far too likely to tear up those tangled vines and leave a greater problem.

🥴 Steve

 

[flowerbug]

went out and picked tomatoes this morning. two buckets worth which should be enough to fill what quarts jars i have left. in carrying the buckets up to the house i felt my back go "Ouch" so i knew i was in trouble. rinsed and sorted the tomatoes out and then and went to finish mowing. yep, back not happy. will start on ibuprofen when i get up again. i need a shower... if i'm lucky this will just be a few days grumble as usual.

there's a lot of tomatoes still out there (guessing about 200lbs) and we've given away quite a few and eaten some fresh too. definitely a good harvest considering the heat and lack of rains, but i did keep them watered regularly.

since i'm out of jars soon and not going to be in the mood for much more canning the next few days i might call it the end of the tomato canning season and we'll just eat what's left when we want. any green ones can be rescued towards the end of the season before frosts arrive and those can be eaten for a while as long as we can find a spot to keep them.

in other news this morning when i woke up there was the Momma deer standing near the end of the driveway and her two little ones were not far behind. they'd gone around and eaten all the new squash leaves they could find and of course checked out the beans too. why they couldn't eat the stuff i'd have liked for them to eat i dunno. it was fresh greens like the ends of some birdsfoot trefoil and clovers, but they ignored that whole area. plenty of it... i mowed it down again today. i want to keep it short to give the thyme a chance...