How's your garden now?

[FarmerChick]

You know that ONE day when it is producing and the next minute everything is dying, produce gets yuckier, cukes get bitter, way too many melons ripening at once and so on.......

our summer gardens are toast almost BUT we did get alot canned and frozen. So we saved alot of money on food stuffs so that is always a good thing. pantry is doing well!!

I am raring up to pull, turn dirt, weed out the bad plants and keep the good and all that nice work to get ready to set in fall stuff.



How is the status of your garden right now?
Did you get alot? Is your pantry full to how you expected?

 

[so lucky]

Tomatoes are blooming and setting on fruit. Cucumbers are browning and drying out. Pole beans are finally producing, and still flowering. Okra prodicing well. Fall greens are coming up, as are peas. Potatoes didn't do diddly squat. Zuchini bloomed but never set fruit, then died. I was planning on opening the garden up to the chickens, but will wait till mid winter, I guess.

 

[mississippifarmboy]

Our garden is about over. Still have okra and peppers doing good and still picking an odd eggplant or tomato sometimes.

About time to till everything under and plant the winter greens (Turnips, mustard, kale, and such).

We canned about a third what we usually can. The garden just dried up too soon. We had a bumper crop of tomatoes, the cukes, peppers, okra, eggplant and onions done ok. Everything else was poor this year.

 

[moolie]

Mostly done now, but still have some hangers-on:

Peas and wax/green beans got pulled out a couple of weeks ago, those did well enough for fresh eating and some soup canning despite a crazy slug infestation.

Last of the carrots got pulled on the weekend, over 60 lbs The big ones are all stored away in damp sand in 5 gallon buckets, the small ones are in the fridge awaiting canning up for soups and stews today.

Greenhouse peppers, celery and tomatoes (Rutgers, San Marzano) are still producing well and should do for a few more weeks. The peppers and celery have gone into recent soup and spaghetti meat sauce canning.

Garden tomatoes (Early Girl, Rutgers, Yellow Pear, San Marzano) are just ripening (taking their time since the nights started getting cool, we're into frosty nights now and are covering everything each night).

Cukes didn't do squat, pumpkins are small and I need to get some straw to put under them for insulation now that we're into frosty nights. Also going to pull off any new flowers from now on so they can put on some growth.

Corn is doing really well, but the ears are still small--hope that any frost we get here and there will be light and miss them.

 

[BarredBuff]

We're pretty much done, we're just scrounging now. Maybe a mess of beans left, peppers to process, and some melons. Maters are gone, and taters are dug.

 

[FarmerChick]

scrounging....I like that description. same here. now onto the next bumper crop and I hope it is a good one.

hard work right guys?
but well worth the results most times.



our watermelons didn't do well. seemed we were waiting for them to ripen and overnight they all went overripe. crazy situation on those. had a few good ones and a ton of them when they get mealy. I don't like them like that.

 

[donrae]

Summer squashes are pretty much spent, and at this point I'm okay with that. I have squash in every way, shape and form. Now, I'm just letting them grow and will pick those huge things to feed to the animals. My dogs see the goats eat squash so of course they think they have to have some lol.

Cukes are done. They did well this year.

Tomatoes set well but are just now ripening. The cherry and grape plants produced well, the other plants meh. Had blossom rot also. I'll probably pull a few plants to try hanging in the garage and see if they ripen over the winter.

Peppers did great--but we don't really eat them. The main reason I grow them is for salsa, but with the poor tomato performance I'm just freezing them, some after roasting and we'll see if we develop more taste for them over the winter.

Acorn squash are probably ready to harvest. Nice crop.

Green beans---I let them get too big and they're really too tough to eat. I'm picking them for the birds, the chickens love picking through and getting the beans out. I thought about trying to dry and shell them but realistically won't do that. I'm okay with eating them later as eggs.

Pumpkins--I think we planted 3 plants and have over a dozen huge pumpkins! Those plants are one thing that could actually take on my blackberries, they've grown over the berries into the pasture next door. Might be fruit set over there, I'll have to have a boy hop the fence and check.

Swiss chard took a break during the heat but I just kept it cut back hard and it's coming on nice again.

I need to plant some carrots and beets, maybe more chard. My favorite seasonal nursery opens again tomorrow so I'll shop--I want some mums for two planters that are tired and see what they have for fall veggies.

 

[Marianne]

Dismal.

It was dismal all season. Not just mine, but everyone's around here. I finally have some tomatoes setting on now. Friends got their first cucumbers a week or so ago.

Pretty pathetic. LOL Oh! My sweet potato vines look pretty dang good, so there's always hope there.

 

[me&thegals]

Getting 300-400 lb of tomatoes per picking, about 100 lb of beans per picking.
Sweet potatoes are insane, spreading still, probably 2-3 lb per plant.
The last of the potatoes have dried up and needs to be dug.
Fall lettuce is coming on strong, but spinach didn't germinate and is being replanted today.
Radishes, turnips and arugula go in today.
Carrots and beets look great and just need some weeding. We like both to get a few fall frosts to sweeten them up.
Cabbage, broccoli, kale, Swiss chard and Brussels sprouts are thriving.
Popcorn and Hopi blue flour corn are drying down.
The pole beans are being let go to form seeds.
The last planting of dill, cilantro and other herbs looks great.
Some fennel went to seed, the rest is forming bulbs nicely.
Squash, summer squash and cukes completely devastated by squash bugs.
Raspberries going strong for at least another 1-2 months, despite frosts.
Peppers and eggplants are also still going too strong.
Celery, cutting celery and celeriac doing well.
Sweet corn is done.

So, some has passed, some is still coming on, others are being planted.

 

[Corn Woman]

Tomatoes everywhere, the beans did very well as did the broccoli and cabbage. Peppers are loaded and the corn is just finishing up. Winter squash were an epic fail but the summer squash did just great. Only gripe is that we will have our first frost soon and I 'm just not ready for it. The pantry is bulging and there are boxes full of canned food stacking up in the sewing room. I really need to organize but figure I can do that when the snow falls. All in all what started out as a dismal growing year with record heat and no rain turned out to be wetter than average in July and August so the garden exploded.