How's everyones garden coming?

[Classicvette63]

My lettuce is done. Made a first timers mistake and planted too much at one time. So I had about 20 heads that were all ripe at the same time. The peas and string beans are starting to come due. Made the mistake of thinking I could cook them like store bought veggies. A minute in the microwave doesn't do it for fresh stuff.

Made the mistake of planting too many carrots as well. Thinned them and hope the rest grow carrots bigger than an inch or two.

On one side of the garden the weeds are horrendous. Not sure why only on one side. Maybe because it is more shader than the other? About once a week I have to go out and pick the weeds by hand.

The tomatoes are starting to come out and the brocolli and cabbage plants are pretty big. Some of the corn is almost as tall as I am. How's everyone else doing?

[Rocky Raab]

All the early stuff is gone andcleared. Had some great spinach, French radishes, sugar pod peas and mixed lettuces varieties.

I have tomatoes on all five varieties of plant, plus a couple of "volunteer" tomato plants that sprang up on their own. The pole beans are only a foot tall, but will be shooting up their strings any day. I even have a pair of rogue watermelon vines growing - I have no idea where they came from, but there they are!

Expect the first ripe tomatoes in about a week. Nothing else growing now but herbs. I'll be planting the autumn lettuce this week.

[Tater]

Some friends of ours did the same thing a few years ago and they were giving away veggies to everyone they could think of to try and avoid it rotting. We had more carrots, tomatoes, cucumbers and zuccini(?) than we knew what to do with.

[Blktail]

A rabbit found a way through the fence and all but decimated my peas and pole beans. The peas are recovering. The rabbit and the pole beans will not recover.
I have lettuce and radishes aplenty and will all summer. Peas will be three weeks untill they start producing. Yellow bush beans will be producing in a month or less.
I have perpetual spinach that is just maturing and if I don't dig them up they will produce all winter if it doesn't get too cold.
Everbearing strawberries are just starting to slow down. Asparagus is finished. Spagetti and acorn squash and cucumbers are a couple months away.
The wife's flowers are just starting to bloom in earnest.

That waskalwy wabbit was the only problem this year. Also provided a little excitement in the way of slow season hunting too. It all balances out in the end.

I used "Roundup" on the garden this year before I tilled it and it made a huge difference in the weeds. It doesn't leave a toxic residue either.

[M.T. Pockets]

I picked the last of the peas Sunday, the string beans are about half done. Great crop. The potatoes, carrots, onions look like a bumper crop too. The vine crops are blossoming and setting, looks like a lot of melons, zuchini and pumpkins. My wife likes about 10 pumpkins to cook up and freeze for pies. I don't can anything, just freeze it & stack it up.

My garden is right by the shooting range, so I can shoot a group, go hoe weeds. Shoot a group, fertilize. Shoot a group, water....

My wife came up with a great idea and it worked. We planted the entire perimeter of the garden with a row of peas. We had no intention of ever harvesting this row, it was designed as a fence to keep the rabbits out. She figured if the rabbits come along the garden and find peas right away, they'd just eat them and stay out of the rest of the garden. It worked, the rabbits about cleaned out this outside row and they never bothered the inside. Now come fall, I'm going to try to hunt down those fat rabbits and make some stew along with the vegetables in the garden they were feeding by.

[GoodOlBoy]

If it ain't dead it ain't in my garden. We are 14 1/2 inches low on rainfall for this time of year, and watering will only do so much. . . . .

GoodOlBoy (Trying to find somebody with purple hull peas, fresh pintos, and black beans for sale now)

[Rocky Raab]

Purple hull peas...

Boy, does THAT bring back memories!

When I was stationed in Columbus, Mississippi, an old black man used to come thorugh our neighborhood twice a week on an even older wooden wagon pulled by a mule. He maintained a huge truck garden all by himself and sold produce from that wagon.

Well, he sold us a peck of purple hull peas once. My wife (Chicago born and bred) had never heard of them, and assumed they were like regular English peas. We hulled them - and got purple hands - and then she dropped them into boiling water for three minutes. They were like eating warm gravel.

When she told the story to her Southern girlfriends, thay all about howled themselves to death laughing.

"Honey," they said, "Ya'll have to bawl them peas with a little fatback fer jist ARS afore they're done!"

(translation: BOIL them for HOURS)

[wrenchman]

mine is doing great eccept the roma tomatos i keep getting black spots on them it is only happining on the romas
my mother has told me it is a form of blight i have never seen it before she told me to not plant tomatos in this spot for a couple years.
a couple years ago i had rabbits eating my garden everthing but tomatos.

[DaMadman]

Mine is doing ok this year not great but ok. Have gotten lots of radishes (which are about done, and going to seed) picked come squash already, got Cucumbers and Peppers (wax, jalepeno and bell) already too, no red tomatoes though. Lots and lots of green ones but no red ones yet. Corn doesn't look great but it might do something before it is over
Watermelons didn't even grow this year.

Not having a roto tiller doesn't help either. But will get back on track next year

[rainydays]

My garden has suffered terminally from weeks of thunderstorms and heavy rains mixed in with some hail. Will be a few radishes and onions. Everything else pretty well battered including the old house. Hoping the fall will be beautifull and chuck full of pheasants. Best Wishes--tr

[McPat]

We harvested the last of the peas last week. The first batch of beans are about done too, but we're going to try to go for three batches. I tried to plant carrots, oregano, rosemary, and parsley, but for some reason none of it came up. I tried three times, but to no avail. The basal came up though. The spinach and lettuce were great. I'll probably plant another batch of each in another month or so. The Spaghetti squash, zuccini, and cucumbers are doing great. The peppers aren't doing so well, but I hope to get a few anyhow. Tomaotes are comming on strong now and I put in 400 onions that are doing well. Some rain would be good though. I have been watering a little, but the city announced that the water rates were going up 60%. (Sould have bought some bonds). I guess it's a typical year, some bounty, some disappointment. The best thing about the garden is working it with the kids and the pride on their faces when we start to reap the bounty!
McPat

[GoodOlBoy]

I feel your pain Rocky. Around my place we shell a few bushels then can them. By the time it gets around february you don't hafta do much to make one heck of a good meal outa them..

GoodOlBoy

[DaMadman]

just wanted to report that I got my first red tomato from the garden yesterday. Will probably eat it tonight.

Nuthin better than home grown 'mater

Also it looks as if it is going to be a bumper crop of jalepenos at my place this year. went out and looked yesterday and lordy "B"

I got jalepenos by the bushel and I think I only planted 8 plants