Anyone Garden?

All my black berries and raspberrries are done for the season already. I ate about 10. The wildlife got the rest :/

This is what we canned from the garden yesterday.

Total of 49 quarts of green beans so far and I think I finally convinced the wife that we need to stop on those.
The corn is the best either of us can ever remember tasting, puts last year's silver queen to shame.
Next will be tomatoes and we're hoping to get at least 30 quarts of those.

Canning to me is a lot like processing firewood. It can be a pain in the butt getting there, but once it's all done, the feeling of comfort and security is hard to match.

johnpma said:

anyone have raspberries??? While mowing the lawn the other day I noticed a row of raspberry bushes that have beautiful ripe berries. It was all grown in with tall weeds. Just wondering what is involved in raising them??? This is an old farm home we purchased. Finding all kinds of neat things.....found apple trees out back that are covered in bitter sweet

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I have red raspberries. I remove any black wild raspberries found nearby as they supposedly harbour a fungus of some sort that they can tolerate but the cultivated ones may not.
UMaine has some growing tips http://umaine.edu/publications/2066e/ and some utube videos for pruning and removing the old growth. I'll also remove old plants when they shoot out suckers (in th right places or transplant ) as it helps to keep the berry size large with young plants.

johnpma said:

bsruther, do you use a pressure canner?? I want to try it but am unsure of the process

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Yes, a pressure canner and a boil canner for tomatoes and pickled stuff.
A pressure canner can seem a little intimidating at first but it's a pretty simple process.
Just get a copy of the Ball Blue Book and follow the instructions exactly and only use their recipes.
Start with something simple like carrots. They're cheap and easy to process.

The pressure cooking is probably the easiest step in canning and basically what you do is...
Put 2-3 inches of water in the cooker
put the jars in and close the lid
turn the heat on and wait until pure steam comes out for a few minutes (venting)
put the weight on and bring it up to pressure
cook for the given amount of time
turn it off, let it cool until the pressure is at zero
remove the jars

The hardest part of it all is processing the vegetables. I am not looking forward to canning tomatoes, but their flavor can't be matched by anything in a metal can.
If I can get 30 to 40 jars of tomatoes, they'll last me a few years. I use them in a lot of recipes, but I think they're best on pizza.

It was called 'gotta have it' from Gurney's. I remember reading about the sugar buns when I was looking for a good type of corn. This year's corn was to test out a hybrid variety to grow in the big garden next year.
I was initially kind of apprehensive about trying the super sweet hybrids after reading from some people on gardenweb saying that some of the hybrids were too sweet and didn't taste natural.
The wife absolutely loves this corn, so even if I didn't want to, she'd make me grow it again.
We grew about 80 stalks and have gotten about 90 ears so far. The husks are really tight and go all the way to the tip and we saw no signs of ear worms. The only bugs I saw on them were a few aphids. Had our first ears at 75 days.

As bad as the available "sweet" corn is around here, it's worth every penny. It seems that even the farmers at the local farmers markets buy their corn in bulk and it's the same mealy, pulpy, bland garbage that can be found at the grocery. Eating corn on the cob is one of those nostalgic summer feelings and it's great to finally be able to experience it again.

One thing that surprised me was how easy corn is to grow. With most vegetables there is a learning curve for us and with corn there are a few things that need to be figured out, but overall it's pretty darn simple to grow. After many years, I'm still trying to figure out how to grow abundant large bell peppers. We're getting better with them, but I want to get to the point where we don't have to buy any from the store @ $1.00 each, and that's when they're on sale.

That usually means too much nitrogen and maybe too little phosphorus. Peppers are light feeders. Can try side dressing w/compost or something to boost it into blooms.

John- the extra rain all year made tomato diseases set in early this year for sure

I didn't have the best results with ashes but I did it because so many other people had a lot of success. Honestly, the top trick seems to be cow poop.

I just spread my ashes lightly through the yard, but if you put them in the garden, I think the trick is to spread it thin and not use too much. Ashes are one of those "less is more" things.

RE: post 110. Looks a bit graphic.

What is the best practice for putting raised beds to sleep for winter? I usually put my shredded leaves on top, but I notice weeds still tend to grow underneath in spring.