Love this time of year

[SolarAndWood]

The tomatoes could have used a couple more days, but we are done with the produce section at the grocery store for a while. I hope everyone else is having a good growing season. Hot and humid has been very good to us.

 

[semipro]

Nice haul. Color me green.

It almost takes me a machete to get through my garden now. Every spring, with the greatest of intentions, we plant. Every summer about this time I look at the garden and sigh. Too many other things compete for our time.

We actually have some nice stuff growing in there right now so I may have to hack my way in. I see lots of green tomatoes just hoping they redden.

 

[mikeyny]

I hate this heat but the garden loves it, especially the peppers. this yr I have managed to keep up on the weeding better than ever. Work has been slow, too much time on my hands. Normally I plant let the weeds grow and hope the vege's take over.

 

[SolarAndWood]

I hear ya with the peppers mike, they are crankin. Semi, I haul in 30 yards of mulch a year to avoid weeding. It may be more work in the end, but weeding is a drag.

 

[timfromohio]

I've put down a double layer of newspaper topped with grass clippings in between rows this year and it's working very well to keep down weeds.

That's a good looking salad! Our peppers are going gang busters as well, some blight on tomtatoes though - still, should have plenty for sauce.

 

[SolarAndWood]

Sorry to hear about the blight Tim. We took a bath last year with late blight after getting our hopes up that we had avoided it. Hopefully, moving them to the lower terrace saves us from similar disaster this year. After being close to having to buy tomato based products, I think we will get ourselves as far ahead as we are with firewood.

 

[timfromohio]

Thanks for the support! We should still have plenty of fruits for sauce and the majority of the plants in our new "traditional" garden area (not raised beds) are doing quite well. Overall, I'm pleased in that this new area has been a success this year thanks to the addition of 10 yards of composted horse manure - it aided greatly in making the clay-rich soil a viable growing medium. Now, if I could just get the area to drain and dry out sooner ....

Does your lower terrace offer better air circulation or was it the fact that the soil was new that helped you escape any blight?

 

[SolarAndWood]

The tomatoes were in the upper row of the upper terrace last year with potatoes two rows over. We tried the let the plants grow on the ground thing, not sure if this contributed or not. I moved them as far away from the area we had the problem in last year. The organic matter should help with the drainage. The first few years, our clay/glacial till mix was a bear, but it has gotten better over time as the organic matter has been added.

 

[semipro]

I've put down a double layer of newspaper topped with grass clippings in between rows this year and it's working very well to keep down weeds.

That's a good looking salad! Our peppers are going gang busters as well, some blight on tomtatoes though - still, should have plenty for sauce.

We did this one year and it worked great. Only problem was the newspaper somehow survived the winter and ended up strewn around the yard in spring.

 

[Wallyworld]

That salad looks some tasty

I've been eating peppers since the end of june, which is way early for Maine. Had a few tomatos, some of my plants are over 8 feet tall. I picked 2 buckets of beans on Sunday, 15 pkgs in the freezer now. Been picking blueberries and freezing them. Squash looks awesome, cukes are tasty. Need to plant some more carrots so I can cover them with leaves late fall and dig them up in the middle of winter

And my firewood is all done :lol:

 

[SolarAndWood]

Have any pics of those 8' tomato plants?

 

[Wallyworld]

Have any pics of those 8' tomato plants?

I posted this in another thread, the top of the hoops are about 8 feet. The pic sucks as my camera fogged up in the heat and humidity, the pic was taken several weeks ago. I use this to get tomatos to grow as I live on the coast of Maine and temps are tempered by the ocean. I move the hoop house every year so the tomatos are grown in another spot

 

[madrone]

Lucky devils. Enjoy. We've had an unusually cool and cloudy Summer so far, so although my plants went in early and are mighty tall, they're just now starting to get a few small green tomatoes and peppers. Raspberries performed well this year, but pretty much everything else has been slow or under producing. On the positive side, my spinach didn't bolt right away this year.

 

[Bobbin]

We're into the second planting of radishes and lettuce but with the hot weather it's already about to "bolt", the third planting has a week+ to go before harvesting can begin. The first planting of green and yellow beans has already given up in excess of 8 lbs. of beans, another few pickings and they'll be tapped out, the second planting is a week or so awy. Beets and carrots are looking good, second planting of broccoli is coming along, the Brussel Sprouts are looking super, as is the red cabbage. Celery... not sure where that is relative to harvest. Peppers, eggplant, and tomatoes are really enjoying the sunshine and warm temperatures, though. And this year the husband has done successive planting of basil and we've turned it into pesto for future use.

You can't beat pesto pizza with fresh tomatoes on it. Mmmm. Or, tomato and mozzarella salad. Slice tomatoes and fresh mozzarella cheese, arrange on a platter. Drizzle with a little olive oil and some balsamic vinegar. Top with freshly chopped basil and serve. Out of this world!

 

[SolarAndWood]

I posted this in another thread, the top of the hoops are about 8 feet.

That's pretty cool, I didn't get the scale when you first posted it. Good argument for a greenhouse.

 

[SolarAndWood]

You can't beat pesto pizza with fresh tomatoes on it. Mmmm. Or, tomato and mozzarella salad. Slice tomatoes and fresh mozzarella cheese, arrange on a platter. Drizzle with a little olive oil and some balsamic vinegar. Top with freshly chopped basil and serve. Out of this world!

Couldn't agree more, our favorite place for such consumption is in the middle of the garden.

 

[begreen]

I posted this in another thread, the top of the hoops are about 8 feet.

That's pretty cool, I didn't get the scale when you first posted it. Good argument for a greenhouse.

I love summer, wish we had one this year. We have hopped right from June to Sept weather. 54 outside right now. Our garden is struggling just to produce. We are still harvesting broccoli and radishes! I'm thinking of constructing a couple mobile hoops just to see if we can get some stuff to ripen.

 

[Bobbin]

Love the second quote in your signature, BeGreen. That's great.

 

[BucksCoBernie]

Semi, I haul in 30 yards of mulch a year to avoid weeding. It may be more work in the end, but weeding is a drag.

see if you can find some salt hay.....its the best for veggie gardens and is easy to transport. I dont use wood chips to mulch my beds, just the paths and the landscape.

 

[Bobbin]

Our "linner" today consited of:

Grilled summer squash, onions, green pepper, and our first eggplant!
Hamburger for me (A-1 but no bun), cheeseburger for him.
Fresh tomato and mozzarella salad.
Boiled potatoes.

Fabulous!

(I've used the newspaper and dark bark mulch on new perennial beds with great success. Key! weed and water thoroughly. Soak the newspapers before laying them down; I prefer to lay multiple layer of news print over a nice layer of compost. Apply a 2" layer of mulch. The mulch won't degrade before the newprint does and the compost encourages earthworm activity which improves soil tilth and overall quality. I need to pay attention to the newest bed, it's been over a year since I did what I just described and I need to get after the crab grass and few other weed you want to nip in the bud).

 

[SolarAndWood]

Semi, I haul in 30 yards of mulch a year to avoid weeding. It may be more work in the end, but weeding is a drag.

see if you can find some salt hay.....its the best for veggie gardens and is easy to transport. I dont use wood chips to mulch my beds, just the paths and the landscape.

Other than the blueberries, we only use wood mulch on the walks as well. The beds get the grass we bag off the lawn.

 

[mikeyny]

next yr I may plant some garlic. I read somewhere ( probably here) that you can plant it in early fall to harvest late in the spring. I also want to put in a horse radish patch. We inherited a big patch with our last house and left it all there. Nothin better than fresh horse radish on your burger.

 

[begreen]

In spite of our ridiculously cool summer we are producing in some areas, but crops are smaller. Harvested a bed of potatoes yesterday and some cukes. This is where the greenhouse helped. Plants that got their start in the greenhouse are providing some peppers and eggplants. The tomatoes all have fruit and we started picking a couple yesterday. And this year we are trying a new bean (for us) - dragon's tongue, that is turning out to be quite tasty. But oy, these foggy 55 deg mornings are not good. I'm starting to see powdery mildew on the soft maples. That's trouble when it gets in the garden.

 

[SolarAndWood]

Hey BG, why didn't you build that greenhouse about 4 stories high?

 

[begreen]

That might be interesting, though I already have a watermelon crawling around the ceiling rafters. It would be a bit inconvenient if it went any higher.