What's in your Garden?

[WRideout]

My five year-old granddaughter and I pulled weeds out of the postage-stamp garden yesterday. In this part of PA, conventional wisdom is to not plant until Memorial Day, but I'm thinking Global Warming may take care of early frost danger. Plan to put in tomatoes, bush beans, Swiss chard, Anaheim peppers, and lettuce.

Does anyone know if okra will grow this far north? I love Cajun/Creole food, and okra is essential for that.

Wayne

[Tripplebeards]

I picked some asparagus yesterday for the second time and finally planted half of my garden now that the temps are in the high 40s at night. Yellow Sun sugar and red 100’s Cherry tomatoes, beefsteak,big boy,and better boy tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, and peach mango squash. I started some celery from soaking the heads in water and I’ll plant those to. A couple of my fruit trees are just starting to blossom but not open. I normally plant red, orange, and yellow bell peppers but I never get any peppers off of them until the end of September when it gets cold they finally ripen. Seems like a lot of work and energy for not a lot of produce with peppers so I think I might pass on them this year. With Limited garden space i’d like to get a lot of produce per space in at $2.50 a pepper plant and I end up buying six as usual it’s cheaper to go by peppers in the store. The store-bought ones of course never taste as good.

I wanted to try purple Hawaiian Ube yams since I had their traditional purple bread over there a couple of times which days it is made with them but it seems the only way I can get them is off of eBay for about 25 bucks for 10. I don’t have room for 10 so I’ll probably pass on them this year and it’s getting too late already I think for the amount of time they need and I have a feeling I don’t have enough warm weather or long enough going to get them to work anyways.

Forgot, I planted ground cherries in 2, 5 gallon buckets as well.

[MaryB]

I grew okra one year for a friend, in Minnesota... forget the variety but it produced well. Plants were started mid April indoors then moved outside end of May.

[WRideout]

I grew okra one year for a friend, in Minnesota... forget the variety but it produced well. Plants were started mid April indoors then moved outside end of May.

Thanks, Mary. I will get some in the ground in the next few days.
Wayne

[Arisaka99]

I have tomato plants coming in the mail, Mortgage Lifter and Black Krim, both grow well enough in my area of Virginia. Started from seed and transplanting this weekend/week are Tiger Squash, Hot Pepper mix, Brandywine Tomato, Pak Choi from saved seed, Onions, various herbs, Pickling Cucumber, Armenian Cucumber, and a few others. Many of the seeds failed to germinate, I'm not sure why. Maybe just the right combination of too much wet and too much heat, as we had a hot spell over 80 for a week last month right after I started the seeds outside.
Still, there will be enough if all the tomato plants produce, and I can trade for other items.
BDGR

We love Mortgage Lifter's and Purple Cherokee's. My wife will fight someone for the last Cherokee tomato. They're great sandwich tomatoes!

[MaryB]

Beefsteak, Purple Russian, Roma, Atomic Grape this year...

[Thundarstick]

No post in a while, so here goes. Green beans are still going strong, melons aren't too far from ripening. Tomatoes out the ears, canning salsa and rotel, okra by the buckets as well as squash. The black berries are mostly over, seedless jam, canned whole, and pie filling stocked up on.

Has your garden been boom or bust?

[farmerjim]

I still have Sweet Corn, Cucumbers, Squash, Peppers, and Eggplant, but the Tomatoes are all all gone.
I also grow and sell flowers.

[Reverend Al]

We have a bumper crop of raspberries this year. Several years ago my wife planted a few canes along our back fence and they have grown like crazy. She spreads them out on a flat pan to freeze and then bags them up for future use. We have bags and bags of them stashed in the freezer so far and she is still picking more of them every day. Nearly every night after dinner we've been having raspberries drizzled with cream or yoghurt for dessert. (And of course this is all her doing since she's the green thumb ... I'm a "black thumb"!)

[robg]

Apples pears blueberries black currants rhubarb tomatoes and beans ,some herbs .I do the the digging where my wife tells me ,cut the grass and trim the hedge.its only a small garden thankfully.

[trapper9260]

Been picking some raspberries and the first crop is just about done and the 2nd crop is going to be coming along and some zucs and summer my brother been pick and lettuce Had some wild raspberries came in early .See what will be next.

[Shawlerbrook]

So far summer squash, kale, lettuce, Swiss Chard. Hopefully next week cucumbers and soon tomatoes. In August will pick wild blackberries.

[Tripplebeards]

We have a bumper crop of raspberries this year. Several years ago my wife planted a few canes along our back fence and they have grown like crazy. She spreads them out on a flat pan to freeze and then bags them up for future use. We have bags and bags of them stashed in the freezer so far and she is still picking more of them every day. Nearly every night after dinner we've been having raspberries drizzled with cream or yoghurt for dessert. (And of course this is all her doing since she's the green thumb ... I'm a "black thumb"!)

I need to lean how to freeze them properly. I always wash mine and they look like one big frozen glob squished together...red, black, and gold. I’ve picked about 2 gallons so far and left a few for the birds and bees.

[snowwolfe]

Started planting fruit trees 3 years ago. We just picked peaches and Asian pears. One apple tree has one apple, lol. It looks perfect and will pick it later this week. First year for our persimmon trees and one has one, the other has two. Hope we get to eat them before the deer find them. Our paw paw trees are very slow growing so when fall comes going to use the backhoe to dig a bigger hole and fill it with good dirt and fertilizer and replant them, then the growth should take off.

[Reverend Al]

I need to lean how to freeze them properly. I always wash mine and they look like one big frozen glob squished together...red, black, and gold. I’ve picked about 2 gallons so far and left a few for the birds and bees.

My wife spreads them out on a sheet pan as picked (she doesn't wash them), freezes them, then transfers them into zip lock bags. Works great so far and they stay intact even after you thaw them for use ...

[woody1]

I picked two raspberries today! First ones of the year but they should come on like gangbusters in the next week or so if the hot weather doesn't do 'em in. Raspberries are the one consistent fruit producer we have in our area. Late frost (June) and/or early (August/early Sept.) frost are pretty common here.

[Hossfly]

Picked 20 # cucumbers this morning, made sweet pics last week lime type, giving these away will do more sweet ones then done. So far this season haven’t had to water anything, plenty rain times like this wish I’d planted more. Now it’s okra next hot weather crop. Snap beans done and tomatoes almost thru. Squash over.

[quilbilly]

Our fall crop of lettuce, cabbages, and spinach is coming along nicely. We will have peaches to harvest in a couple weeks and the honeycrisp and gala apples should be ready in six weeks. The Ozette potatoes (a mysterious finger potato brought to the Northwest by the Spaniards in 1750 and grown by coastal Indians ever since) in our garden are almost ready for harvest.

[Tripplebeards]

My wife spreads them out on a sheet pan as picked (she doesn't wash them), freezes them, then transfers them into zip lock bags. Works great so far and they stay intact even after you thaw them for use ...

That’s what I figured...I gotta stop washing them.

[gwpercle]

I got Sugar Baby watermelons , first attempt at growing them , 7 to 10 appear to be on the vines .
Okra (green and red) , Tomatoes , Jalapeno and Gypsey peppers and two kinds of weeds .

Grew one Sunflower....just one , but it's 12 feet tall and has a huge yellow flower head.
I didn't know Sunflowers grew that big . We planted more but some kind of stem borer or stem weevil killed every one of them except for two . The winds from Barry blew over another and the stake I had it tied to . This last one was the sole survivor. I'll keep some seed and try next year...them stem borer's/weevil's are the real sunflower killers .
Gary
Satsuma , Meyer Lemon and Grapefruit trees are loaded this year .