What did YOU do in your garden today :P

[ninnymary]

Steve, can you post a picture of your snap pea trellis? I'd love to see it and need ideas.

Thanks
Mary

 

[digitS']

Here is when the peas were a good deal shorter: Jun 4, 2014 .

The snap pea vines are nearly at the crossed supports now and there are lots of pods.

Steve

 

[ninnymary]

I don't think I have room for anything like that. Are there only 4 strings going across? How do you keep the string taut? I tried wrapping string around my obelisk but it always sagged.

Mary

 

[digitS']

This worked out well this year, Mary. Part of it was beefing up things with a little more wire. Part was just giving those "stretches" of string a little more support with some more string tossed over the long horizontal boards.

There was just enough extra done that my longest trellis ever, is holding up nicely.

There are 5 strings on each of the 3 levels.

Steve

 

[ducks4you]

ALL I seem to be DOING this year is digging and mixing dirt with compost!! Yesterday was just Independence Day inside-of-the-house prep, but Thursday I dug out the rest of my garden bed weeds and ran my tiller. I pulled apart three of my raised bed wooden borders to get it all done. Today I'm putting them back together and planting my peppers and tomatoes, FINALLY! I promise to take pictures bc we took some AMAZING shots in our back yard. We have 5 acres on the edge of town and we ALSO have neighbors who compete with their own fireworks displays every July 4th. We made a council fire in the north pasture, pulled out our lawn chairs and had amazing seats some 150 ft. from where they were setting them off. My Nikon COOLPIX captured the fireworks on it's slow aperature setting. You'd think that the camera was much bigger.
I also finished clearing the weeds out between my two black raspberry bushes on the south side of the garage. I have 7-8 volunteer sunflowers growing there and I'm dumping compost today and throwing in every seed I can think of to smother the weeds.
I think my favorite tools this year are my spade and my gardener's knife.

 

[ninnymary]

Sounds like you have been very productive ducks4you. Hope you are almost done with all that prep work so that you can start relaxing and enjoying your garden.

Mary

 

[JimWWhite]

Mostly we tied up the tomatoes this morning and got in the bush beans. This is the third harvest in just over a week and we got at least another ten pounds which makes the total take from a 4'x8'x12" box so far to be about thirty pounds, give or take a pound or two. And they've been great. Teresa insists on cooking them the old fashioned southern way by boiling them to death in a big pot with a ham hock. Don't get me wrong, they're really good but I prefer to have them sauteed in olive oil with garlic, salt and pepper. Excellent. The rest she's frozen and canned plus I gave some to my co-workers last week.

Also my gourmet cucumbers are coming in now, along with the yellow summer squash. I've got a few small patty pan squash as well but we'll wait until tomorrow to bring them in. Teresa did make these things called squash croquets yesterday. She took several yellow squash and shredded them like hash browns and mixed in some onions, flour, a couple of eggs, salt and pepper and deep fried them in peanut oil. They were about three inches in diameter and a quarter inch thick. Really tasty. Crunchy too. Served with ranch or honey mustard salad dressing. They'll be a repeat, for sure.

I think after the sun goes down we'll go out and dig up a box of potatoes that we've been sneaking a few out of here and there. Teresa dug up several for breakfast this morning and the ones she got were kind of large for red Pontiacs but they were really good. I think I'm going to replant the box with what is left from the crate of Beauregard sweet potatoes that we found a few weeks ago in the garage where she put them for the winter. There's still a handful of them and they're covered with slips. Can't go wrong with sweet potatoes.

 

[digitS']

I got the leeks weeded.

This was for the 2nd time so they were in no danger of being ripped out with the weeds. For something that might be as big as a baseball bat by the end of the season, if they weren't so crowded, they sure are wimps.

Chickweed would probably be the death of them in their customary garden location. And, you can't lift the weed and toss it. Oh no, then the leek would get dirty and stay that way because of the shape of its leaves. They are so tight this year it's all a pinch and drop routine. Dry, hot, windy weather should kill the weeds where they lie. I'll get some more fish emulsion on the leeks again, soon.

I've got Lancelot and a "Summer" leek this year. I'm trying to figure out what value Summer has ... smaller than Lancelot. That it can't be stored for the winter isn't a valuable trait ... must be something else.

Steve

 

[ducks4you]

Saturday: Beds wooden borders put back together
and
28 sweet peppers planted, 9 volunteer Jalepano Gigante (from 2013) planted, 4 Ancho Problano (bought) planted, 22 Roma Tomatoes (bought) planted, and 14 Brandywine Tomatoes (bought) planted.
I may never walk again...

 

[journey11]

Planted several short rows of sweet corn ('Delectable', bicolor, 82 dtm) and decided I like living on the edge and planted several rows of 'Earthtones' rainbow dent corn, 90 dtm. Depending on when they tassel, I may have to bag the sweet corn. Had I been on the ball, that sweet corn should have gone in 2 weeks ago, but I only had a little seed left and really wanted to use it up. Also put in two more rows of multiple colors of sunflowers.

Harvested tons of Pic n' Pic hybrid crookneck squash. It is ridiculously productive. One more picking of cukes in the next day or so and I'll make the first batch of pickles.

Pulled up all of the onions. They weren't very big this year. I got them in about a month late, but better than no onions. I'll be dehydrating most of those.

The neem oil seems to be working on the JB's. They have mostly vacated my variegated porcelain berry vine but for the lowest foliage and only found one on the beans, one on the roses. Drowned all those guys.