2025 Garden Thread

[DuaeGuttae]

We're in a heatwave here, and my Red Noodle Yardlong beans are loving it. I picked those and the Rattlesnake pole beans this morning and hope to give some of them away to an older neighbor today.

The Shishito peppers are just about half of what needs to be picked, but the good thing about those is that they can hang on the plant without getting too big or going past. We enjoy them when they turn red, so they're a nice plant for a side dish that gives more flexibility in terms of harvest.

The okra is the accumulation of a couple of days of picking. My kids want me to fry some up, but I need to accumulate some more to make it enough for us. My plants are beginning to flower on the side branches now, though, so that should help increase our yields.



The photos below are Roma tomatoes and Peaches and Cream corn from my mom's garden. Her plan is to make tomato juice this afternoon, and she didn't want to use the paste tomatoes for it, so she gave me what I could carry home along with the ears of corn she shucked for my family. She also had ended and cut green beans for us, but I urged her to put those in her own freezer. She's a pretty amazing eighty-eight year old.

 

[djlew]

Beautiful harvest DG, and also from your mom!

Heat is brutal here. I think it is supposed to break this weekend. We are harvesting about 2 cucumbers a day, maybe every other. Finally grabbed some seeds from my bolted lettuce for next year. My pepper plant is thriving but not fruiting, probably some pollination issue. Herb garden is also thriving and randomly chaos spread marigold seeds are sprouting. Really happy with what we have so far, but next year want to focus on pollinators and attracting things like dragonflies into the garden. I am attempting to hand pollinate in the meantime.

 

[begreen]

It's great to see those pickings DG. Your mom is inspiring. That's what I love about summer!

We are just starting to get a daily harvest of garden goodies. The green beans are kicking in and tomatoes are starting to get serious. We're a week or so away for pepper picking still. The exciting news is that we have 10 melons so far! Can't wait for them to ripen. The squashes are setting delicatas and butternuts. Cukes still trickling in, but they tend to come in waves. We'll be picking our first corn this week too.

This morning's pickings. These are tasty Chinese long beans. We'll be picking Blue Lakes tomorrow.

 

[begreen]

The tomatoes are really happy this year. The tallest plant is pushing 7 foot. The bean arbor is loaded too. We are super excited by the Athena melons. This is the first year we have grown them.

 

[EatenByLimestone]

Just got an email from MIGardner that all seeds are 40% off. I’ve bought from them before with good results.

 

[djlew]

Looking good BG!

Picked 3 cukes today with no sign of slowing down. After doing some hand pollinating with the peppers we have some fruit going. Another lesson learned... pay attention to flower drop. This is where the notebook will come in handy for next year!

 

[DuaeGuttae]

@begreen , your garden is looking fantastic. My tomatoes are producing, but blight is taking its toll, creeping up the plants. They are still putting on healthy new growth, though, but I'm starting to prune more out to get them to concentrate on the fruits they have.

@djlew , are you familiar with the plants that have "perfect" flowers like tomatoes, peppers, and okra? It means that the flowers have both male and female parts instead of being separate like cucumbers and squash which have male flowers and female flowers. I find that for the perfect flowers I don't need to go to great lengths to pollinate, but I do like to flick the plants or tap the trellises to encourage pollen drop within the flowers.

Thankfully the pollinators seem to be helping me out with my cucumbers, so I haven't had to hand pollinate them. I do think the bees really like the buckwheat that I seeded out earlier in the summer as a living mulch. It's all gone from my garden now, but I still have it along the driveway and in a bed in front of the house. I didn't manage to get flowers in the garden this year, but I was excited to see one bloom on a sweet potato. It doesn't really mean anything in terms of food production or anything, but I just like sweet potato flowers because they're like pretty purple morning glories.

My husband continued to work on getting rid of a large brush pile by chipping today, and I continued to add the mulch to my garden paths. It's been a big job, but the pile is mostly gone, and the garden is much more mulched than earlier. I calculated that if I put two inches of mulch along all the paths, it's about six cubic yards. Wow.