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Mike Nolan.
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August 23, 2024 at 9:13 pm #43686
My spaghetti squash are doing fairly well, I haven't tried to count the number of fruit, but one of them is getting pretty large already. I think I put in 6 plants (3 hills) and they all came up (unlike the dill I planted where only one seed came up.) Usually you get 3-5 usable fruit per plant. It'll keep blooming until frost hits, but the late-setting ones won't get ripe enough to eat.
It is supposed to be possible to freeze cooked spaghetti squash, you let it drain off excess water first. Might have to do that if I get a lot of them all at once, which is how it usually works.
I picked about 11 pounds of tomatoes today, mostly small ones like 4th of July and Porter, but a couple of bigger one that we'll probably save for sandwiches. I doubt I got them all, I'll look for more in the morning. I'm going to make a small pot of sauce tomorrow using the new 8 quart induction-ready stock pot I bought earlier this year. And of course it's supposed to be really hot again tomorrow, 100 or so. One advantage of using an induction cooktop is it doesn't heat the kitchen as much.
August 25, 2024 at 9:53 am #43698This particular comic strip has done an arc on tomatoes. Here is the final one:
August 30, 2024 at 6:54 pm #43758In May, my husband planted two organic potatoes that were sprouting. The potatoes came from Kroger. Today, he presented me with a big bowl of potatoes: the fruits of his labor. I took a picture and will see if I can figure out how to post it. I am thrilled with how great the potatoes turned out.
Our Fairy Tale pumpkin finally produced a female flower. My husband hand pollinated it. We now have the start of a small pumpkin!
The beans are starting to produce again! Hurrah!
There are now four Honey Nut squashes. That is a low number, but since we had thought there were only two, it is nice to have double!
The tomatoes are producing, but not at a fast rate. However, the cherry tomatoes are going strong. I should have enough soon to make the green bean salad again.
August 30, 2024 at 7:45 pm #43759A number of Italian Heirloom and Amish Paste set in the cool spell a few weeks ago, today I picked 5 Amish Paste, and had one on my salad. The Italian Heirlooms are a day or two away.
I may have enough smaller tomatoes (3 or 4 different varieties) ripening to do another batch of tomato sauce on Sunday or Monday. I can do up to about 10 pounds at a time in my 8 quart induction-ready stock pot. I'm freezing a lot of it in small batches (4-8 ounces) which is the right amount for a pizza or other dishes that need just a little tomato in them, and I'll probably freeze some larger batches for things like spaghetti or lasagna.
August 31, 2024 at 9:29 am #43765Our Early Girl and Amish paste are loaded with tomatoes that are turning red rapidly now, enough for tomato and/or BLT sandwiches several times a week. I'm also freezing sauce in small batches, and waiting to go to the market to get jalapenos for salsa. I will be picking today from the third planting of green beans. Of course, I planted way too many kinds of salad greens and they're the most successful of my gardening efforts this summer. Today I will start shutting down my deck gardening for the season - pulling up old plants/flowers, refilling my buckets of soil and compost for next spring, bringing inside to the sunroom the mandevillas, some calibrachoas, ivy geranium, etc to overwinter. If the weather pattern holds (70s, no rain) I'll trim and transplant herbs into fresh containers for winter, and start salad greens inside.
September 1, 2024 at 9:50 am #43772Our Early Girls have been a disappointment. They start to go bad on the vine.
Better Boy is doing well.
Dester Indiana is doing well but we have learned needs more sun. We may put it in a pot on the side of the house next year. The Goliath bush is forming some nice large tomatoes.
The cherry tomatoes are abundant.
September 1, 2024 at 10:39 am #43776Early Girl is not my favorite, Celebrity is, but there were no Celebs available in our area last spring. All the home gardeners have learned how good are and bough up all the starts at the nurseries! Early Girl is OK, but not as consistent or as tasty as Celebrity. This summer, mine are loaded with tomatoes, but many are smaller than expected, I assume due to the long periods of either flooding or drought. When I had teen-agers living at home, I usually grew 30 tomato plants; now I plant 6 slicers and 6 pastes. There's only two of us, and we don't eat nearly as much sauce/casseroles as we did when the kids lived here.
September 1, 2024 at 1:18 pm #43778I bought a bunch of 4 and 8 ounce freezer jars and froze both of the batches of tomato sauce I made, and I've got enough jars left for a third batch. I also want to freeze some quart-size containers for things like spaghetti and lasagna (both made low-carb), so I'm hoping I get another 3 or 4 batches of sauce made from this year's garden.
My Celebrity and Rutgers tomatoes are doing so-so this year, but that's true of well over half of the plants I started in March. I don't think it's just me, I've talked to others in Lincoln and their tomatoes are not having great seasons, either.
I'm probably going to try Defiance tomatoes next year instead of First Lady, for which I haven't found a reliable supplier, but will probably stick with the 4th of July, Italian Heirloom and Amish Paste varieties, though I'm getting a lot of shoulder splits on the Amish Paste tomatoes this year. Not sure if I'll do Porter next year, though it has been a reliable producer, a lot of little ones but the weight adds up. I haven't done Big Boy or Better Boy in a while, I might try them, and I am tempted to try the Burpee Supersauce tomato, though my experience has been that when tomatoes get over a pound in size, they aren't as flavorful.
The UNL urban soil improvement project we're in ends with a third set of soil samples next spring, so I will probably pull the cages and landscape cloth afterwards and re-till the garden for 2025, most likely throwing in a few bags of peat or sphagnum moss.
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