How are the 2018 Gardens Progressing?

[chocomouse]

Gardening is not progressing so well. We ate 2 tomatoes - delicious! We are picking blueberries and blackberries. We now have an electric fence around all the veggies, and we have a video of a skunk getting zapped, "getting even" by spraying the wire, but thus getting zapped again, and finally running out the same way he came in. We have 2 very small zucchinis and 2 very small summer squashes now, quite a few small, green bell peppers, and 5 cabbages. I've bought zucchini for the first time in my life. We've had 1/4 inch of rain so far today and it is supposed to rain for the next 24 hours; that would help a lot.

[Mike Nolan]

Gee, are the vegetables still edible after having been sprayed by skunk?

[chocomouse]

Mike, I would think not! But he was inside the electric fence, and sprayed outward-- no veggies outside the fence, just grass. I would not eat anything that I suspected had been sprayed. The odor dissipated after an hour or so

[BakerAunt]

Finally, one of the tomatoes is beginning its path towards redness. I have bacon, and will have great bread, on hand for that moment. Next year, my husband plans to start the plants earlier on our sun porch. We delayed because we had been told the contractor would start no later than March....(still waiting).

[BakerAunt]

We have had one tomato from our garden. Today my husband picked about five or six. I am looking forward to bacon and tomato sandwiches in a few days.

A couple of tomato worms were on the plants, but wasps "parasitized" them. Thank you, wasps, and I will be careful not to get stung.

[RiversideLen]

My tomato plants have been giving me for several weeks now. They may have peaked but have a ways to go yet. I'm having a hard time keeping up it, I can only throw so many tomatoes at my neighbors. I'm planning on making sauce on Sunday and then freezing it. I've had a couple of BLT's. Here's a sampling of it.

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[Joan Simpson]

Beautiful tomatoes RiversideLen!

[RiversideLen]

Thank you Joan. For me, tomatoes are one of the highlights of summer.

[Mike Nolan]

I picked our first tomato the other day and had it for lunch. In two weeks we're going to be swimming in them.

[BakerAunt]

Swimming in tomatoes has already started here. I'm considering a Pizza Margherita--with basil on mine. (My husband does not like basil.)

[Mike Nolan]

I just picked about 45 pounds of tomatoes from the garden, so I'll be making sauce tonight, though I'm not sure where I'm storing it until the upstairs freezer is repaired, probably around the middle of next week.

These are fairly acetic tomatoes, I might try canning some, possibly adding a little citric acid. I've got a digital pH meter that I use for the hot tub, the information that came with it says it is safe for food use as long as I rinse it thoroughly before and after. USDA says it is safe to use the boiling water method for canning tomatoes as long as the pH is below 4.6.

Cooler weather and storms are headed this way, but if it doesn't get too cold or damp I should be able to pick another big harvest next week, and somewhat smaller batches for the next several weeks.

[BakerAunt]

I'm glad you have the canning method on which to fall back, Mike. I hope that the repair person can get the freezer fixed for you next week.

Our second crop of green beans should be ready to pick early next week. Two of the bell peppers are turning red. The tomatoes continue coming, although my husband has found some tomato worms. He has also found some that have been parasitized by neighborhood wasps. I'm not sure from where the wasps originate, but I am glad their actions are defending the garden. My husband's carrots seem to be doing well. Of course, sometimes you cannot tell until you pull them out.

• This reply was modified 6 years, 2 months ago by BakerAunt.

[chocomouse]

I just froze the last batch of tomato sauce. And I now have a pork roast in the tagine, with sliced onions, boiled cider, honey, ginger, turmeric, cardamom, and cumin. I'll put apple slices, quartered potatoes, and carrots in soon. We'll get a couple of meals out of this. It's nice to be switching over to fall-winter type dishes, a complete change from veggies fresh from the garden cooked on the grill with a piece of meat/chicken/fish.

[Mike Nolan]

We got a break, the part came in and the service tech had a cancellation, so the freezer is repaired and getting nice and cold. We're starting to load it, so the sauce can go in there tomorrow.

I wound up with nearly 16 quarts of tomato pulp, which will likely reduce down to 10-12 quarts of sauce. For some reason I wound up with a lot more seeds in this batch than were in the last one, though I used the same processing method. I may try running some of the sauce through a canning screen to see how that works, it may trap too much pulp along with the seeds. I don't know if I have a Foley, but it might get rid of the pulp lumps, which we liked in the last batch.

[chocomouse]

Great that you didn't have to wait longer!!

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