Today's harvest

[PrincessFiona60]

I was just sayin', in case PF had gardening urges. And the garlic has to go in this year, if she wants some next year.

It will have to be container gardening. I tried to dig a 6 inch deep x 4 foot trench in several spots and the neighbor's Pine trees have the backyard fully in their rooty clutches. I couldn't get more than 18 inches without hitting a ginormous root. So much for putting in a bike rack with a bit of concrete to make it stable.

Not going to worry about a garden this year, been to the Farmer's Markets, Mom and Dad have a 2 acre plot they garden. I'm good for fresh produce.

 

[Bookbrat]

Potatoes in a Barrel

Has anyone ever tried it?

We are experimenting with wire cages this year. We have such a problem with scab, no matter what we do, that we figured it was worth a try. We layered straw, compost and semi-rotten chips from the post mill down the road. A bunch of squash decided to come up around the base so we let them go and they're forming some acorn-looking fruits. They started from hybrid Carnivals, so it will be interesting to see what we get.

 

[FoodieFanatic]

That was why I started container planting. Much easier and the results are amazing.

 

[Addie]

I was just sayin', in case PF had gardening urges. And the garlic has to go in this year, if she wants some next year.

Yeah. One of the maintenance men who has garden plots planted here, planted two plots with just garlic. He just cut off the flower tops and is now letting them stay in the ground until next year. The bulbs are presently very small. He bought a small bale of hay and has the plots covered up and protected from the coming winter. Smart man.

I stand back and watch our residents who grew up here in the city think if you just put a seed in the ground you have a harvest growing. Whereas the maintenance folks who come from small villages south of the U.S. grew up watching their families growing the food that fed the family. And as kids they had to help take care of those gardens.

Our resident planters are upset because they had a failed crop this year. Tomatoes covered with black holes, plants that failed to finish growing, etc. I was talking to one of them and he is trying to blame the maintenance men.

 

[blissful]

Yeah. One of the maintenance men who has garden plots planted here, planted two plots with just garlic. He just cut off the flower tops and is now letting them stay in the ground until next year. The bulbs are presently very small. He bought a small bale of hay and has the plots covered up and protected from the coming winter. Smart man.

If you plant a clove of garlic, you will get a bulb with divided cloves, like you buy in the grocery store.
If you plant a bulbil (seed from the flower part), you usually get an undivided small bulb which will take another year to produce a divided bulb with separate cloves.
http://joysgarlic.com/grow.html

I don't grow garlic from bulbils, I plant from cloves. This is another way of planting garlic. We also cover ours in straw, to keep the weeds down.

 

[blissful]

That was why I started container planting. Much easier and the results are amazing.

Amazing, yes!

 

[dcSaute]

this disappeared, reasons unknown

it's a peck of peppers not yet pickled.... or diced & frozen....

 

[blissful]

this disappeared, reasons unknown

it's a peck of peppers not yet pickled.... or diced & frozen....

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. How many peppers did Peter Piper pick?

 

[FoodieFanatic]

Those are beautiful, dcSaute!

 

[dcSaute]

here are peppers gone wild. I use tomato cages - the newer heavier wire / powder coated types - for green/banana peppers - the cages are worthless for tomatoes but do well for peppers. that is until the peppers make a break for it over the top - anything more than one pepper on a "limb" and it'll break off as the fruit enlarges.

 

[Cooking Goddess]

You could always pull off the smaller peppers for cooking and call them "gourmet petite peppers". The stores always charge more for those.

 

[Addie]

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. How many peppers did Peter Piper pick?

But can you say the whole thing?

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked. If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, how many pickled peppers did Peter Piper pick?

 

[blissful]

But can you say the whole thing?

Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers. A peck of pickled peppers Peter Piper picked. If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers, how many pickled peppers did Peter Piper pick?

No I cannot.

 

[Addie]

No I cannot.

I don't know why, but tongue twisters always came easy to me. I used to be able to sound like an auctioneer also. I lost that talent years ago. I never had the call to do an auction.

 

[FoodieFanatic]

We have a small patio apple tree that usually produces 2-3 apples. This year we have NINE apples. Throughout the winter I used coffee grounds and eggshells sprinkled on the pot. Must have worked, the leaves were beautiful and the apples are juicy.

 

[blissful]

We planted apple trees and a pear and a plum (RIP 2 years ago) about 30 years ago, and never had much of a crop of any of them, though the plums were pretty good some years.....pears good some years.
This year and I've heard this from others too, the apples are great. We probably have a few 1000 apples now, we've never had that before. It may be a bounty year for apples. I'm not sure what we will do with them, this year, we'll just try to put them up some how.

 

[PrincessFiona60]

You need a cider press!

 

[Dawgluver]

For the first time in at least 4 years, I won't have to do drive-by apple drop-offs. My usually extremely prolific tree has one, maybe two apples this year. Glad it's finally taking a year off!

 

[PrincessFiona60]

As long as you don't go buying them so you can drop them off. You know, those folks are counting on your apples each year...

 

[Dawgluver]

I think they'll be relieved!