gardening and the back yard

[sgt_zim]

This has probably been the best spring garden I've ever had.

I've put up about 8 gallons of garlic/spice dills, and about 2 gallons of bread and butter pickled squash/zuchinni, with about 20 or 25# of squash in the refrigerator waiting to get converted to pickles. Not quite a bushel of green beans, and about 3 messes of purple hull peas so far. I've been really good about spraying weekly, so no stink bugs, no leaf-footed bugs, no tomato horn worms, no squash vine borers. But what I have had is effing mocking birds destroying about half my tomato crop.

I don't give a fig if they are the state bird. I'm gonna kill me some mockingbirds starting next March before they begin to nest.

I have hot banana peppers coming out of my ears, a decent set of jalapenos and bell peppers, and the eggplants are just starting to come on. Pulled up the green beans last weekend and planted 16 hills of okra. I ought to be able to put up 4 or 5 gallons of pickled okra.

About 2 more weeks, it'll be time to pot broccoli, cabbage, and cauli seeds, and fall tomatoes. And I'm toying with putting in some sweet potatoes this year. I just don't know where I'd store them. In the space I have, I should be able to harvest about 2 or 3 bushels of them.

 

[yamoon]

I planted pawpaw trees about 8 years ago, I will have a bumper crop this year if I can keep the raccoons and possums out of them.
Mike

 

[sgt_zim]

eggplant parm

 

[deewayne2003]

This has probably been the best spring garden I've ever had.

I've put up about 8 gallons of garlic/spice dills, and about 2 gallons of bread and butter pickled squash/zuchinni, with about 20 or 25# of squash in the refrigerator waiting to get converted to pickles. Not quite a bushel of green beans, and about 3 messes of purple hull peas so far. I've been really good about spraying weekly, so no stink bugs, no leaf-footed bugs, no tomato horn worms, no squash vine borers. But what I have had is effing mocking birds destroying about half my tomato crop.

I don't give a fig if they are the state bird. I'm gonna kill me some mockingbirds starting next March before they begin to nest.

I have hot banana peppers coming out of my ears, a decent set of jalapenos and bell peppers, and the eggplants are just starting to come on. Pulled up the green beans last weekend and planted 16 hills of okra. I ought to be able to put up 4 or 5 gallons of pickled okra.

About 2 more weeks, it'll be time to pot broccoli, cabbage, and cauli seeds, and fall tomatoes. And I'm toying with putting in some sweet potatoes this year. I just don't know where I'd store them. In the space I have, I should be able to harvest about 2 or 3 bushels of them.

@sgt_zim

I can sympathize, mocking birds are the tomato tax man and putting nets over a garden is a pain.

Get a space blanket and cut into strips 3/4 the height of the plant and about 1-1.5” wide, tie one end of the strip to the top of the tomato stake or cage so that it blows in the wind.

The reflection and motion screws up their depth perception and makes it harder them to land.

 

[Philip Glass]

Excellent! We will be right behind you if the insects don't get ahead of us. I really enjoy fried yellow squash. A southern delicacy and one of the main reasons I help out in the garden. To be fair my ranch hand and my wife do most of the work.

 

[sgt_zim]

Around here, the squash and zucchini have to be sprayed weekly or the squash vine borers will transmit bacterial and/or viral wilt to them, and they'd all be dead in under a week.

I finally pulled up my squash yesterday. We've eaten all we can eat, and given away a bunch more. Still about 20 lbs in the refrigerator that I need to get pickled.

 

[Wahoo]

The orchard is doing well and starting to produce. Sent the kids out to fight the birds off the cherries tonight

 

[deewayne2003]

@sgt_zim

You mentioned liking slicer tomatoes; here is an example of a mature “4th of July”

Not huge like a beefsteak but the fruit production is high, I picked 3 this morning and have another 17 still on the first plant just beginning to ripen.

Roughly the size of a tennis ball and their indeterminate so they keep producing all summer.

 

[sgt_zim]

@sgt_zim

I can sympathize, mocking birds are the tomato tax man and putting nets over a garden is a pain.

Get a space blanket and cut into strips 3/4 the height of the plant and about 1-1.5” wide, tie one end of the strip to the top of the tomato stake or cage so that it blows in the wind.

The reflection and motion screws up their depth perception and makes it harder them to land.

I believe I've licked my mockingbird problem - as soon as I see just a little pink, I pick 'em and stick 'em in the window for 3 or 4 days.

Planted German Johnsons and Brandywine this year, plus a purple variety recommended by the county extension service botanist, but they aren't very purple.

 

[RichieMoons]

If you’ve got that much produce rolling in, you’re clearly doing something right, and it’s fun to keep that momentum going indoors too. I’ve been filling empty corners of my house with houseplants from a place I liked, and it made the downtime between harvests feel less empty. They’re easy to care for and kind of scratch the same itch as watching a garden burst to life.

 

[thriller]

I plant Juliet tomatoes down here it’s a Roma grape hybrid. It produces about 1.5 gallon ziplock bags of tomatoes per plant each year with virtually no maintenance.

 

[sgt_zim]

I plant Juliet tomatoes down here it’s a Roma grape hybrid. It produces about 1.5 gallon ziplock bags of tomatoes per plant each year with virtually no maintenance.

I don't have the luxury of no-maintenance anything in the Houston area. If I don't spray the tomatoes with insecticide and fungicide, and pick them before they're very red, I won't get very many tomatoes.

And we've been so wet here recently I haven't been able to spray, the tomatoes, cucumbers, and squash are beginning to suffer. I'll probably end up having to replant squash, fully expect them to be dead in a few days from squash vine borers.

Nightly lows here are now consistently above 75º, so my tomatoes are done setting. I'll harvest what's left on the vines, cut them off, pull up the hog panel trellises, and plant some black-eyed and purple hull peas.

 

[thriller]

I don't have the luxury of no-maintenance anything in the Houston area. If I don't spray the tomatoes with insecticide and fungicide, and pick them before they're very red, I won't get very many tomatoes.

And we've been so wet here recently I haven't been able to spray, the tomatoes, cucumbers, and squash are beginning to suffer. I'll probably end up having to replant squash, fully expect them to be dead in a few days from squash vine borers.

Nightly lows here are now consistently above 75º, so my tomatoes are done setting. I'll harvest what's left on the vines, cut them off, pull up the hog panel trellises, and plant some black-eyed and purple hull peas.

I am in Coastal Alabama I find the Juliets just are not bothered by the bugs that eat the larger ones and continue setting well later that any others I have planted in the past. I landed on them for heat tolerance but love the low maintenance aspect I just have an automatic watering system and let them do their thing I am picking about 15 a day right now with little ones on the way