Damn you... I have close to 150 good sized, hard, green tomatoes sitting on the vine right now. I cannot wait until they start to ripen up, never mind to the point they can be picked. That being said, I've started in on my romaine and have enjoyed the best tasting salads I've had in years over the past few days. 6 heads down, 114 to go. I'm really wondering if the first ones harvested will be regrown by the time I get through the rest. And off to the side at the end of the garage I planted 2 small cherry tomato plants, and they are now almost 6' tall and will be ripening within the week.
Yeah, I have at least 100 tomatoes growing but these finally started changing. I had 6 iceberg lettuce that I cut and they are now growing back.
Well, what I thought to be pumpkin seeds turned out to be mostly zucchini seeds. One pumpkin plant in the bunch. The neighbors are going to have produce mysteriously showing up on their steps soon.
Great looking stuff, zyron, good work sir. Kubla - I feel you, man. Nett, when they all start breaking color, you will be stuffed with them. I am still picking twice a day. Canning salsa later today, which will be included in my extended family Christmas gifts come December. Hey, one good tip, about when you are picking a LOT of tomatoes. If they are cracked or pecked, you have maybe 24 hours on the counter, they go bad fast. Instead of letting them spoil, just rough cut away the damage, throw the good flesh into a storage container or whatever, drop in in the fridge. Use them for cooking, fresh salsa, whatever tickles you. For whole tomatoes, however, you can pop them into a gallon ziplock that you keep in the freezer. One, they last indefinitely, Two, when you bring them out and they begin to thaw, you can simply squeeze them and the skin slips right off. It's like magic. It really helps you accrue enough to do bigger things. Of course, you will be eating all that you can fresh, and giving them to neighbors, all that jazz, but they still start to stack up. Hope that helps someone!
Walt, that made me laugh! My poor neighbors are going to start bringing all the okra I drop on them back to me if I am not careful. I fried it, I pickled it......I am out of decent crap to do to make it edible. Beautiful plants though, grow well in the heat and drought. Oh hey, maybe we ought trade some okra for zucchini!?!?
Yeah, I hear ya, and I'm ready... I plan on vacuum packing a ton of pre-mixed sauces and stuff with them for winter cooking, etc.
Whatever you do, don't boil it. I know some people like okra that way, but to me it just looks like demon cum.
Acceptable okra use is: fried, stir fried, or pickled. Boiled okra is for communist pedophiles who beat their dogs. Shudder.
I may not have thought this all the way through. I am chopping, cooking, boiling jars, doing the whole salsa thing.....on our hottest day of the year for 2018. 107f out. My ac is rocking it, but man. I planned it because Friday, beers, good time, but it is crazy ass hot. If there is a silver lining here, it's that after blistering and chopping jalapeños, I am in fact remembering to pee hands free. Safety first.
Nothing succeeds like success! Also, I can heartily recommend Sol as your salsa making beer of choice.
I picked the first cucumber for supper. In addition to zucchini I'm gonna be up to my ass in cukes. Beats up my ass I suppose. We have chickens and pheasants that will also be enjoying fresh produce for a while.
I've only been harvesting swiss chard and tons of lettuce so far, still waiting for anything else. Cucumbers are probably a week away, tomatoes maybe a few days... but there are a solid 250 big, green, firm tomatoes just on the edge. When they hit, it'll be a twice-a-day harvest situation... and maybe time to build a trebuchet so I can launch a bunch into the neighbour's back yard. Had some bad weather over the last couple of days that caused the back row of tomatoes to become a bit waterlogged with some flopping back over the edge... so I made a bit of a back-rest for them: Before: After: While I was at it I figured I'd make a cage for the 2 cherry tomatoes that were growing like crazy (but still a few days from ripe fruit): Before: After:
One advantage to working from home is that you can run out and protect the garden from surprise "massive hail" warnings at the drop of a hat. It's ugly, but it works.
I like it, Nett, good save! I am seeing more heat damage from the days that we hit 104, 107, etc. Burns the exposed tomatoes, the sweet peppers too. I can still use the produce in sauces or salsa, I just have to trim the burned areas off. The heat is really taking a toll on everything, but it will speed along the new seed for the fall garden. Planting seed for sugar snaps and green beans on Saturday, in fact.
Mind you, I am not complaining, the harvest has been very good. Here is a pic of the picking from the last two days. Note the abundance of smaller tomatoes, they will continue to set fruit in the heat, as opposed to the big slicers.
The heat hasn't really fucked up the garden, thanks to the wicking bed technology, but I'll tell you my lawn has taken a hit. Front lawn has sprinklers, and I've spent more cash than I've wanted to so far this summer to keep it green, but the back yard has just fucking dried up to something like brown concrete dust. I've dropped probably $100 on grass seed, only to have that seed basically bake and not germinate properly. So then I updated the sprinkler technology in the back yard to include timers, set to lightly spray every couple of hours, and it's coming in a bit better... but is still crazy thin wispy green grass that isn't even strong enough to survive a cutting. Now there's a big fucking skunk that is digging up the fresh grass that is going to be hunted down over the next week or so. (I've just mounted a red-dot holographic scope to my pellet gun for night-time engagements).