Garden 2016

[sluckey]

My garden is up and running. Here are a few pics...

Overview. Left to right... Crookneck squash, two rows Silver Queen corn (white), two rows Merritt Sweet corn (yellow), another row of crookneck squash, and finally, 8 tomatoes, 6 Mammoth Jalapeño peppers, 3 straight eight cukes.


And a couple walk thru pics...

[sluckey]

This is not actually in my "garden plot" but it's also edibles from around my backyard...

I planted 6 new blueberry bushes to go with my four 30 year-old blueberries...




And I added three more peach trees. Now I have a total of five...


I replaced my 30 year-old muscadines with two one year old vines...


And here's two 3 year-old muscadines on a walk-thru trellis...


Not really edible, but garden just the same. My wife and I rebuilt our 25 year-old landscape timber retaining wall/flower bed with cement blocks. Not fun!


And just for fun on Mother's Day, my daughter Megan and springer spaniel Molly chillin'...

[shooter]

Nice yard!, it's still snowing here
The apples are in full bloom, the raspberries (wild) are coming along nice.  The dogwoods and red-buds are in full bloom, glad God is a better gardener than me

[Ed_Chambley]

Looking good Steve.  I got my first of the year vine ripe beefsteak tomato Saturday along with some in-season ramps.  Fried up some home fries with some Ramps and Bell Pepper, cornbread and some tasty, smoked Beef Ribs. 


I do not have time to garden anymore, but I used to have a mini-farm.  Yours looks just the right size and being in LA, the season warms up quickly.

[kagliostro]

Very nice yard Steve

just curious, how do you use the corn ?

Here is not common to have corn on a house yard, only farmers has it

or few people has the small version for popcorn

Ciao

Franco

[sluckey]

ED... "What's for supper Grandpa?" He said "what he said!" Yum yum! We actually have time for a spring crop, summer crop and turnips/collards during the winter. You know it's time to plant the spring crop when the collards bloom. 

K... We freeze the corn ,  4 shucked whole ears to the bag. Our favorite way to cook it is on the grill, basted with butter and a liberal helping of Zatarain's New Orleans Cajun spice. The other way we use it is boil whole ears then slice the kernels off the ear. Serve with butter, or toss in a green salad or homemade soups.

[Ed_Chambley]

ED... "What's for supper Grandpa?" He said "what he said!" Yum yum! We actually have time for a spring crop, summer crop and turnips/collards during the winter. You know it's time to plant the spring crop when the collards bloom. 

K... We freeze the corn ,  4 shucked whole ears to the bag. Our favorite way to cook it is on the grill, basted with butter and a liberal helping of Zatarain's New Orleans Cajun spice. The other way we use it is boil whole ears then slice the kernels off the ear. Serve with butter, or toss in a green salad or homemade soups.

I was thinking that while I wrote.
This is my favorite type of food and I do miss it.  I used to have over 100 tomato plants every year.  One day I will get back to it.


I mentioned a vegetable that is common in North Carolina called Ramps and I had never had them.  They are like a cross between onion and garlic.  Sure are good. 


You got good growing season, but it is awful hot round Mobile.

[shooter]

called Ramps

I finished climbing in WV, went to the Mom&Pop, and there was a huge heap of greens setting on the counter, they explained what they were and I said sure!  they grilled 'em with my burger, and they were great.

[Platefire]

I'm getting hungry just reading this! Thinking fresh tomatoes, turnip greens, squash, corn, peppers---need some kind of peas or beans thrown in, sweet taters and a pork chop. My wife makes a fine pawn of corn bread, the good old fashion coarse kind. Now that's what I call a meal. Fine garden and place there sluckey! When harvest time comes let me know and I'll bring the the corn bread and an appetite---first fruits celebration! Platefire

[PRR]

> rebuilt our 25 year-old landscape timber retaining wall/flower bed with cement blocks. Not fun!

My septic field is just above my drive and the fill was washing out, exposing the tank. I put in blocks just like yours (maybe more grey). Wasn't bad, though I did take all week. You may have more total blocks; I think I got 1.75 skids. And delivered just AT the high end of the proposed wall so it was all downhill from there.

This was after I had hand-dug, laid, and back-filled 70 feet of new sewer trench, so I was warmed-up.

I suppose you found that when you lay them on a curve you lose the bond pattern, unless you set the bottom course with wide gaps. There's probably a formula.... but I also set mine with an extra 10 degree back-slope to be very conservative.

> 6 new blueberry bushes to go with my four 30 year-old blueberries...

Funny to think of blueberry bushes with ages. They just wild weeds here. We've tagged a few so we don't whack them in pre-bud brush-clearing. But I have no idea if they are 10 years old or 100 years old. (A lot of trees seem to be 60, so I suspect this land was logged-over in the 1950s; blueberries probably trampled in the process, but maybe spring-back in the clearing.)

[sluckey]

I suppose you found that when you lay them on a curve you lose the bond pattern, unless you set the bottom course with wide gaps. There's probably a formula.... but I also set mine with an extra 10 degree back-slope to be very conservative.

Yes the bond pattern does change. But I used construction adhesive on my blocks.

Gotta be careful with those 23 pound blocks. Plenty of opportunities to mess up your back when working with 300+ blocks. I got lucky. I let my wife tote most of them!   

Funny to think of blueberry bushes with ages. They just wild weeds here.

They grow wild in lot's of areas across south Alabama and northwest Florida. But I've never been lucky enough to have any on my property. Plenty of Huckleberries, but no blueberries. Are your wild berries high bush variety?

[PRR]

> mess up your back

This was last year. I am not normally a wimp who can't walk 100' or lift 10 pounds (or sit a whole minute).

My wall. It wraps behind the hump a bit more than you see. I was gonna extend it to the far end of the barn, but not this year!

No glue. (Don't think glue would hold against frost!) These blocks have a lip. This forces a 1" set-back at each layer, so gravity is your hold-back. Also this is mostly stray septic-field sand, well drained, no hydrostatic and little frost pressure. Also I shimmed my level for added back-slant. It has held through one mild winter without any sign of shift or damage.

This type block is rated for 24" rise. The library has a similar wall over my head. Those blocks run 16" back from the face. However when I snooped, I saw that many of those block-tails are cracking, and it won't last many more years. Will be interesting, because they just got shot-down for a major improvement project.

[sluckey]

Those blocks run 16" back from the face.

Does that mean 16" from long point to long point? If so, those are bigger than my blocks which are 11.5" long point to long point. Your blocks would be a back killer for sure! 

[PRR]

No. My blocks are 11.?"x4" face, 7" front to back. The Library's tall wall, the blocks are only slightly larger in the face, but go *much* further back. More weight, more stability. Also the tails are partly open so they could run rebar down, or hook rebar back into the soil, even fill the tails with cement grout for more mass/stability.

Except the few I could see into, the tails were broken like when you use a hollow cinder block to support your 1965 Buick in the yard. Probably frost pressure (library's soil is not well drained and the site will freeze/thaw a lot in springtime).

Yes, stacking the library's blocks must have been heavy grunt labor, worse than the large sizes of cement block, though not impressive next to some of the granite work around here. (Local rock shop stocks 8"x15"x48" solid granite, ~~560 pounds, for building stairs.)

[sluckey]

What's for supper grandpa? He said stewed crook-neck squash and onions, fresh picked asparagus with minced garlic, course salt and fresh ground black pepper drizzled with olive oil and grilled on the back porch, and red meat. Add a fresh peach cobbler for dessert. (he wishes!) Yum yum!



The squash was just picked a few minutes ago for the first time. Gonna be a good year for squash! Asparagus is the final pick for the year. Took about a week to get that much. Usually only takes a couple days. Peaches were picked today to take some load off smaller limbs.

[sluckey]

Oh, almost forgot! Heavy rain and big wind laid my corn on the ground late Thursday night. Spend several hours Friday afternoon standing it back up. Looks OK. Hopefully the roots were not damaged too much. Fingers crossed hoping it will still make a crop.

[Willabe]

Oh my.     That must have some storm.

[Ed_Chambley]

Wow Steve.  Looking great and I am hungry as hell.  Problem is I cannot get there until about 8pm.

[tubenit]

That looks like an incredibly tastey meal!!   Yum

Hope your corn bounces back quickly.  We got pretty heavy rains in Charlotte also for a few days.  Maybe the same storm moved east to us.

Best regards,  Jeff

[shooter]

big wind

does your fencing cause *cyclonic* winds?, my house, garage, and barn are each separated by 30' North south *alleys* and when the wind blows hard it can make some great spinning, eerie howling effects that are great to stand in, till the lightning moves in!

[sluckey]

does your fencing cause *cyclonic* winds

Exactly. The Thursday storm had some very high winds and they go crazy when they get in the corner of my garden. Even a moderate wind will knock corn down. I don't think I have any options. This is a big reason for not planting any corn for the last 10 years. It's all coming back to me now! 

[EL34]

The garden looks great Steve

[EL34]

Been picking Broc shoots here and that about all so far

[sluckey]

It's been a week since the storm damage. Recovery looks OK. Corn is beginning to tassel. Cukes have really taken off. Squash are always pretty in the morning. Peppers are about 4" long now. We'll be grilling pepper poppers this weekend. And look at that hydrangea we picked up in Highlands a few years back!

[shooter]

Corn is beginning to tassel

Wow, in the sub artic we have a saying knee high by 4th of July, de-tasseling happens in late Aug.

[PRR]

This one wouldn't quite ripen, and then started going black in the cracks. We considered slicing the bad parts away, but it was awful underdeveloped.

So I carved a jackolantern.

[sluckey]

Nice job! That would have been a fried green tomato down here. 

[Willabe]

    Fit's right in. 

[Ritchie200]

I thought you were trying to keep the kids OFF your lawn, like me!   A couple of years ago I took one of our laid back horses out and did the demon horseman thing.  All in black with a hood and cape and had two red LEDs under the hood for eyes.  I used a belt clip battery amp and my old EH Flanger set in manual position so I sounded like a cross between a Dalek and Darth Vader.  Scared the crap out of the older kids and gave candy to the little ones who were not really scared - because they just wanted to pet the horse!  Great fun!

Speaking of 'matos....  I will be rescuing about 20, 1"-1.5" green little tomatoes from the predicted frost in about a week. (Not sure what the heck they are as I didn't plant anything this year and they just came up!  Like nothing I've planted in the past but they are good!)  It sure seems like a lot of work to slice these up to fry and I'm not really a brown food kind of guy...  So, my question is, what the heck can I do with these?  What's really sad is there are literally hundreds of blooms still on these plants!   Any ideas from our resident tomato experts will be greatly appreciated!

Jim

[PRR]

> Any ideas from our resident tomato experts

Put them in the dark chicken-shed.

That's what we did a month ago when it was clearly too cold to ripen. Figured next spring we'd dump the stump and plant something in the pot. (Most of our viable veggies grow in pots because the ground is cold into late Spring.) Went in there to dump more junk and the tomato buds had grew, and this one was decent size. Moved it to an inside window to see if it ripened, but it wasn't gonna do that.

> fried green tomato down here.

Illegal north of Virginia.

Actually, the local lobster shack had Fried Green Tomato as a Special on the menu last week. But they shut-down yesterday and I think they were just getting crazy after a long summer of boiled seawater.

[Willabe]

> fried green tomato down here.

Illegal north of Virginia.

Actually, the local lobster shack had Fried Green Tomato as a Special on the menu last week. But they shut-down yesterday and I think they were just getting crazy after a long summer of boiled seawater.

   

[Ritchie200]

 

[shooter]

pots

growing is a big hobby here also, not sure if it's because the ground is cold or not

[sluckey]

I split the "last tomato" messages out of the "Garden 2015" thread and put them in the "Garden 2016" thread. Hope everyone can still find them.

[EL34]

I still have sweet banana peppers and some Japanese eggplants in the garden
Hard to believe they are still alive
Everything else died in the garden

[sluckey]

My jalapeno peppers are still setting blooms and producing. They usually do that until frost. Wonder if we'll have frost this year?

[EL34]

Yeah, I just noticed, I have small white flowers at the top of my pepper plants also


Here's what I picked recently

[PRR]

> Wonder if we'll have frost this year?

We got it.

[shooter]

We got it.

after the last one probably 2 bushels of grapes just dropped off the vine

course it's 70 n sunny today, I love global warming

[Ritchie200]

Gentleman....

Since I never like to waste or throw anything away, I was sitting outside staring at my frost wilted tomato plants with the 30 some green tomatoes staring back at me wondering what to do.  I thought that maybe I could make some salsa.  So, this is what I did...

30 some green maters about 1"-1.5"
Large yellow onion
Can of Rotel tomatoes and chiles (I know, I broke the fresh ingredient rule and am cheating) as I thought a little bit of color and tang from the chiles would be good.
Fresh cilantro (gosh I hate this stuff, but was outvoted by everyone else in the house)
Tablespoon Cumin
1/3 cup olive oil
1/3 cup Bragg apple cider vinegar
2 limes juice
2 cloves garlic
Tablespoon salt
Teaspoon pepper
1/3 cup brown sugar

Pulsed into submission with my Ninja blender

However, something was not quite right....  A little too....  Missing something....

1/3 cup tequila

Walah!  Perfection!

This stuff is good!  Really good!  The Rotel did not add any color so it looks like the old green Verde sauce at taco bell.  Hope this helps somebody else.

Jim

[EL34]

Nice!

[PRR]

> Are your wild berries high bush variety?

Blueberry biology is complex. Hereabouts we only have truly wild. Burn the barrens, let grow, pick. These compete nationally with White's New Jersey freaks: "Elizabeth Coleman White of New Jersey offered pineland residents cash for wild blueberry plants with unusually large fruit." That was over a century ago. You may know the change in cannabis over 50 years? We here think mass-market blueberries are mutants. Their fans say they "invented" blueberries. (Indigenous and Vikings have noshed wild blueberries for many hundred years.)

....blueberry bushes with ages. They just wild weeds here.....

I found one!! The local Blueberry Promotion Board used to distribute restaurant place-mats touting the benefits of WILD! blueberries. With an interesting quiz question. The supply musta run out. And yet today Wimpy's had some:

[shooter]

burned off a battery couple days ago,
what gardens look like in a drought


the commercial Mom n Pop blueberries are just ending, my local eatery sells 'em in pint, quart, n 10lb boxes.  the 10lb boxes move out the door at a steady stream, yesterday watched 2 ladies buy 50lbs, at $35 a box!

[EL34]

I have lots of wild blueberry bushes on my property in the mountains of western, NC
They are short bushes with small berries
The flavor is way more intense than store bought blueberries

[shooter]

3" of rain in 24hrs a week after 3" rain in 24hrs.


The mutant Sunflower reminds me of the Greek(?) many headed Sea Serpent, when you cut off one, 2 more grow back.
at the Marco-view, gardens like the South Western desert

[shooter]

made a water buffalo, the 500 gal rain-tank drains into a 42Gal "sand filter", spills over to a 20gal sump, pumped out into the buffalo, pressurized with the air compressor.  eventually the compressor will be an old "travel" 12vdc pump


water about 7gal a day during the dry times

[shooter]

HA, for got the garden shots

[shooter]

the wild strawberries like being captive! 
looks to be 100 berries, 2 ready to sample by tomorrow!


got 4 "transfer pots" for the runners to find new homes.
probably bring 2 pots inside and see how they do as "house plants"