Today in the garden

After a late planting this year because of weather delays, the garden is finally starting to produce.  By the number if cucumber blossoms, we are in for a lot of fresh eating and pickling this year.
The green beans and black eyed peas are blooming, the yellow crookneck and scallop squashes have tiny fruits.  I am anxious to pick and eat them.  There are LOTS of green tomatoes also.
I have noticed a few pests in the garden, particularly cucumber beetles and Japanese beetles.  They aren't causing to much damage right now though.

Preservation day

Today has been a very productive day in terms of preserving our garden's bounty.  Today's totals included:

• 34 one cup bags of shredded zucchini in the freezer
• 13 pints of canned carrots
• 14 cups of peach freezer jam
• 17 cups of frozen peaches
• 4 pints of peach butter

Thanks to Bill for being such a great helper.  I had already shredded the zucchini and cut the tops off of the carrots and washed them, but he helped with carrot peeling, peach peeling and pitting.  Two sets of hands make the job go so much easier.  We still have cucumbers that need to be made into pickles, but they will have to wait.  

Our beagle mix, Riley, at his usual post....not too far from wherever Lauren is.  Lauren really enjoyed helping to pick the peaches off of the trees.  I think that she liked being on the ladder as well.  :)  Our peaches weren't large.  They ranged from the size of apricots to somewhat smaller than a baseball.  They weren't pretty to look at either with black spots on them, but wow, were they ever sweet!  And no bugs or worms!  This was the first year that we have gotten peaches from these trees so we were thrilled.

Lauren with a look of determination.

I had to make sure that Bill got photo credit for all of his help also.  :)

Lauren got a big kick out of this twisted carrot.  We also had one that looked like a pair of pants with legs.  Overall, the carrots did very well.  I also harvested a few peppers, a crookneck squash, some nice slicing tomatoes, many cherry tomatoes, and some okra.  Not enough to put up but plenty to eat fresh. 

Today's harvest

After being on vacation for two weeks, I felt like I needed to go out to the garden with one eye closed and one barely open.  I was scared to see what condition the garden would be in.  I knew that it had been horribly hot, and goodness knows how well weeds love the heat!  Needless to say, the weeds had definitely found home, and we will be working to reclaim a tidy garden for awhile.  I did have some nice harvests though.  I pulled some of the broccoli plants and will have to pull the rest as well.  It has been way too hot for them.  The peas are gone and need pulled as well.

We have plenty of tomatoes to start canning and eating.  There were some cherry tomatoes that did not make it to the picture.  Amazing how good they taste after eating nasty tomatoes the rest of the year.  I may never buy another hothouse tomato again. 

Beets!  They were a bit bigger than I would have liked, but they grew extra long while we were on vacation.  According to what my husband weighed before and after holding the bucket and cutting the stems down, there were nine pounds.  We ended up with eight pints minus what I ate while peeling them.  Yum!  Now to get a second planting in.



Okra update and first harvest

I wish I had gotten the time to take a picture of the okra seeds after their soaking.  We had to get them planted in a hurry prior to leaving on an out of town trip, so I skipped a step.  They started rooting right away in the water/bleach solution.  Who would have thought?  I was hoping for at least one plant so that I could at least keep the seed going since I really didn't think that they would sprout being old seed. 

I thought that I had read somewhere that okra does not transplant well so I had some peat pots in my potting shed and thought that I would try those since I couldn't get them directly into the garden.

 Close ups of okra seedlings.

I had my first harvest from my garden the other day.  Radishes and beet greens.  I radishes and beet greens in my salad last night and they were so good.  My husband thought the beet greens tasted too much like beets themselves (he is not a lover of beets).  I have a lot more thinning to do.  I will have to be looking for other ways to use them also.  I am wondering if they can be cooked like spinach.  I can't see why not. 

I found such an easy way to clean the greens.  I put them in my salad spinner, ran water over them, and them spun them.  No crunchy bits of dirt.  :)

 

1st real harvest

Today I picked a 1 gallon bucket of spinach. It probably was more than that, but I kept gently pushing it down, being careful not to bruise it. It was really sandy with all of the rain we have had, but I found that using a 5 gallon bucket and rinsing a couple of times then filling the bucket again and letting the remaining dirt fall to the bottom worked well. It came really clean. I am going to blanch and freeze it. I did get the items that I need to make a lasagna this week. I am wanting to put some of the spinach in it.

I also thinned my beets and lettuces. I used the same rinsing technique as above. I picked quite a bit of this. I am ready for a great salad this week. Maybe with my lasagna.

My radishes seem to be getting lots of foliage and not much bulb. Maybe I need to check my soil.