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.

 

[djlew]

@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.

That's a lot of mulch! I'm sure it will look amazing.

It's funny, I did know about the different flower types and fruit production types but always assumed I had enough pollinators around to help me out. I'm not exaggerating - for three days I just went out and shook my green bell pepper plant a little bit after a couple months of flower drop and now I have at least 5 developing fruits. Screamed pollination issue to me but it really was interesting to see that method work. Next year I am going to greater lengths to attract pollinators. I was wondering if something similar was happening to my eggplant.

 

[begreen]

DG and others, now do you support your peppers and eggplants? Do you stake them, cage them, or??

 

[EatenByLimestone]

I’ve always caged.

 

[begreen]

I have most of ours cages in those 2 or 3 ring tomato cages, but the plants are particularly robust this year and look like MaeWest in a bustle. I can see that there are flowers buried in there. Getting a large pepper wedged in the tight lower parts will be a bear.

 

[djlew]

I've done both in the past. Recent years I haven't had much yield to warrant either but those almost "lego like" stakes that can build on each other were super helpful and can place strategically to support heavy fruit. I've used those on peppers, tomatoes and eggplant. I even rigged one up (the fun part about the "lego" aspect) as a trellis for the raspberry. That was a fun one.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

DG and others, now do you support your peppers and eggplants? Do you stake them, cage them, or??

I admit to not always supporting them. I have a whole row of them in front of my arched cattle panel trellises, but they haven't needed the support so far. I can weave them into the cattle panels or tie them if they need something.

I did have some peppers in the front of the bed that were kind of leaning over into the paths, and I managed to run over part of one of those yesterday with my garden cart of mulch since my rows aren't really raised in this garden. That made me put an extra bamboo pole in front of them to keep them off the ground, but mostly they are varieties that don't get huge.

I have been known to use rebar stakes just to hold flopping plants upright, but mostly they just fend for themselves.

@djlew, would you be able to attach a picture or a link of the "lego-like stakes" please? I can't picture what you mean, and I'm curious.

 

[djlew]

I admit to not always supporting them. I have a whole row of them in front of my arched cattle panel trellises, but they haven't needed the support so far. I can weave them into the cattle panels or tie them if they need something.

I did have some peppers in the front of the bed that were kind of leaning over into the paths, and I managed to run over part of one of those yesterday with my garden cart of mulch since my rows aren't really raised in this garden. That made me put an extra bamboo pole in front of them to keep them off the ground, but mostly they are varieties that don't get huge.

I have been known to use rebar stakes just to hold flopping plants upright, but mostly they just fend for themselves.

@djlew, would you be able to attach a picture or a link of the "lego-like stakes" please? I can't picture what you mean, and I'm curious.

Absolutely! Lego-like may have not been the best descriptor but what I really like about these is they have the connectors (what I call the legos anyway) so you can create vertical or horizontal trellises. And they have couplers for vertical growth. So far, small scale, have been plenty to tie up everything we have needed. The raspberry hasn't needed velcro but we coupled the vertical stakes with specific plant velcro ties that have been working great. The velcro in the attached is for the eggplant, for the vertical growth.

And since I've been talking about the pepper plant, I tried to get a pic of some obvious growing fruit on it. It's a "lunch box pepper" I think it's called. We had a flat of them but the chipmunk or whatever was ravaging our garden got the rest. We relocated this guy in a pot and he is thriving.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

Thanks for the photos. That helps a lot. I haven't seen those types of supports before, so that explains why I couldn't really picture it.

It might surprise some to know it, but I never had Legos growing up. I believe that I saw them occasionally in other homes, and my kids have some now, but it's not one of those iconic childhood toys for me. Tinker Toys and Lincoln Logs, on the other hand, really bring back some memories. When I saw those trellises, I immediately thought of my Tinker Toys. The longest wooden dowels were even green.

@begreen, I should have mentioned earlier that I used to say that the only use for tiny tomato cages was not for tomatoes but for peppers, but they can get pretty squashed. My mom uses some short garden fencing that she bent into circles. It stays mostly under the plant but it keeps the lower branches and fruits off the ground. If I remember to take my camera over there, I'll try to get a picture.

 

[begreen]

Thanks. I think next year I will try a more open support system for them. I like rebar. A 20ft length will cut up to 5 or 6 stakes.

PS: I didn't have Legos either. That was pre-plastics. Tinker Toys, Lincoln Logs, and then Erector sets were my favorites. However, I got to enjoy Legos with my boys growing up.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

Hmm. I'm not sure why most of my pictures are sideways tonight, but I think they'll still get the point across. It's mostly various peppers with different supports or lack thereof.

My fish peppers in the front of the bed are the ones that were leaning into the path and got run over by the garden cart, so I pushed them back and propped them up with a piece of bamboo that was lying around.


I didn't really realize that my Beaver Dam peppers are making use of the trellis behind them until I paid attention to it today, but the larger plants are being held up by it. I've put those branches up there as they've grown, but I just didn't really recall it as it's just something I do from time to time.


The Shishito peppers are producing heavily. I just harvested yesterday, but they aren't really using any support. Since the peppers are smaller they don't get weighed down as much.


One banana pepper plant is flopping into the path. The other is more upright. These fruits can touch the ground, so I tend to harvest from the bottom to prevent rot. I should probably stake the nearer one with rebar. The eggplants in the background have an arched trellis behind them, but I don't think they're needing it just yet.


The bell pepper is in my mom's garden. I think she and my dad bought a roll of remesh when they moved here more than fifty years ago, and they made tomato cages out of it. Some have fallen apart, and most are a bit shorter where the bottom spikes have rusted out over the years, but my mom still uses them with tomatoes. She put some extras around her bell peppers this year.


This is the short fencing she was given some years ago by a neighbor, and she turned it into supports for peppers and eggplant. She also has some around okra and corn this year, and that perplexed me at first, but I realized that she did it mostly so that she wouldn't step on it when it was germinating as she doesn't have permanent paths in her garden.


The next two pictures are just bonus shots of beans. The Red Noodle Yardlong Beans are in my garden. I have about eight feet of them, and the rest are green beans. I've frozen some red noodle beans and have decided to let the rest mature and dry down for dry beans. They're in the black-eyed pea family, so I'm curious to see what the flavor is like.


These beans are in my mom's garden. They're horticultural shell beans and were supposed to be bush beans. All I can say is that it's good that we had our old trellises that we didn't need for my new garden. My mom sure put them to good use.

 

[begreen]

Thanks for the pictures. I will probably go the rebar route next year though I like your mom's homemade cages. They are wider and not tapered like the hardware store tomato cages are. I may need to stake the sugar rush peach peppers. I just read that they grow up to 5' tall! Ours are already pushing 3 ft. They are from a different heritage than most peppers we grow, being aji family peppers from Peru or Bolivia. We tried one, not fully ripe yet. It was seriously spicy, somewhere between a jalapeno and a habanero. Between these peppers, the Thai chilis, Fresno, and Jalepenos. We are going to be smoking hot. I think I will pickle up a batch for my heat loving friends.

Sugar Rush Peach Peppers - Seeds & Growing Guide - Pepper Geek

Sugar rush peach peppers are some of the most prolific, sweet, and flavorful hot peppers you can grow. Learn about them on Pepper Geek!

peppergeek.com

 

[DuaeGuttae]

I've heard of the Sugar Rush Peach Peppers but have never tasted or grown them. I didn't realize that they were a Baccatum type, but that should allow you to save seeds from them with less worry of cross pollination if you ever do that. I also didn't realize that they'd grow to five feet tall. It does sound like a rebar stake would be helpful there.

We grow a hot banana pepper that tastes to us much hotter then its supposed Scoville rating. I use it in cooking, but my family's absolute favorite way to enjoy it is as pickled pepper slices for sandwiches. I ferment them in a brine rather than using vinegar. The kids are already asking me to make more, though I'm trying to let a few more peppers turn red before I begin. I seem to like all peppers better when they've reached maturity.

 

[djlew]

My mouth is watering just thinking about that. One of these days if my acid reflux tampers down I'm going to have to give that a try! 😂

 

[begreen]

I prefer brine pickled anything, it's healthier, but it makes me nervous to risk all those wonderful peppers and then have a batch go bad.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

I prefer brine pickled anything, it's healthier, but it makes me nervous to risk all those wonderful peppers and then have a batch go bad.

I understand that. I tend not to have enough produce at one time to do a full canner load, so fermentation is only small-batch work for me. It's not such a loss if something turns if it's only a small part of the harvest, but it's hard to lose any homegrown vegetables.

Today is tomato preservation day for me. I have a bunch of my own, and my mom had me bring home four plus gallons of Romas the other day. The ripest of those are currently roasting in the oven with onions, garlic, and peppers for turning into Salsa Ranchera for canning.

The hearts I sliced up for dehydrating at the request of the children, though I didn't have quite enough to fill the trays.

The tomatoes are "Tundra" and "Midnight Sun," part of the "True North" Series by Karen Olivier in Canada. I've previously grown the green when ripe sister "Taiga" in Texas and liked it a lot. These others have very nice flavor as well.


The plain red tomato is Hungarian heart, and then I moved on to others. The dark round one if Polaris, also a Karen Oliver type. It should be larger, but I think my plant is stunted, either by a streak of poor soil, a pounding by hail early in the season, or a combination. I finished up with slices of my old standby, Taste Patio.




I'm also growing a classic slicer called "Nepal.". The tomatoes are beginning to ripen nicely, and these needed to be cut, so I diced them for the freezer. I'll use them in dishes like chili or butter chicken in the fall and winter.

 

[Whitenuckler]

I have the latest pictures of my little area around the bird bath.
I have been waiting all summer for the "Globe Thistle" to turn blue.
They start out white, and then it takes forever to turn blue.
I had to look then up, as I had no idea what they were.

 

[DuaeGuttae]

That is a beautiful spot, @Whitenuckler . Thanks for posting pictures.

My first thought after just being struck by how absolutely idyllic it looks was that you must not have deer to eat your hosta there as that fence wouldn't keep them out. I looked it up and guess that you really don't have deer on the island.

The second thing I wondered is if Globe Thistle can become invasive. I looked that up, too, and saw that it's not classified as invasive, but it can self-seed readily, so deadheading is recommended. It's a gorgeous plant already, and that simple step would keep it looking nice and keep you from having unwanted thistles spreading.

Years ago when our family relocated to Texas for a number of years, we had a property that had been severely overgrazed and denuded of the natural flora. Invasive thistles and horehound had taken over, so we spent a lot of time pulling those and made significant strides. We left it in far better condition than we found it.

That area also had an extremely high-density population of white-tail deer, and I had to go to great lengths to protect plants from them. Because they never ate the thistles for me, I figured that I could grow artichokes outside of my garden fence because artichokes are just thistles, right. Well, the deer didn't actually want to eat them, but they did want to sample the new plants, so they pulled them, tested them, found them unpalatable, and spit them out, but the damage was done. After that I kept my artichoke attempts inside the tall fence.

We now live in Virginia back by my childhood home. Deer visit our yard just about every morning and evening. Thankfully they haven't made it past my fences yet (except once when it was still being built and a couple of camellias got sampled).

Thanks again for the photos. I really enjoyed seeing those.

 

[djlew]

It seems I'm still getting 2-3 cucumbers every other day! I can't keep up but made a nice cucumber salad last night that went amazingly with a gyro!

New to the garden is a yellow jacket ground nest. Right where the cucumbers are. I wouldn't say it's in a high traffic area, but makes me a little more hesitant to visit the garden. Wife likes them there for pest control and some pollination even if not their primary function. I'm leaning more team "try to keep them at bay" to avoid getting stung, I hear they can be ruthless but luckily I don't have much experience with them.

Anybody have any experience with veggie garden yellow jackets?