let's see your veggie garden {pics}

[deluxestogie]

...kabocha squash...I honestly think I could build a gateway type trellis and have it arch over the sidewalk.

CAUTION: Hard Hat Required

 

[BarG]

Well after all my work I provided for my table , but I didn't get to share. My corn crop got planted to late. I know I need at least 35 bags of creamed corn and I got 36. I am happy for me , was still able to share a few dozen prime ears .Its amazing how much people can appreciate that. Now it is on to makin bacon with my thawed pork belly.

 

[BarG]

Carpenter required heh heh Good ones are hard to come by these days.

 

[deluxestogie]

Easiest Crop There Is

I just separate the cloves, stick them in the ground in early November, and dig them up in early to mid June. Garlic is a good pairing with couch potato.

For several years now, I've grown two garlic varieties. My softneck variety is Czech Broadleaf. The hardneck is Slovenian Anka.

If I forget to dig softneck garlic, it will remind me in plenty of time by simply falling over. That's what kicked me into gear today. Yesterday evening, I noticed that half the garlic was recumbent. The other half, the hardneck garlic, instead produces a curly scape out the top. If not cut off (and either discarded, or cooked and eaten as a vegetable), the scapes will produce a fur-ball allium flower at the expense of the garlic head.

Today, I dug the Czech garlic, and cut the scapes off of the Slovenian garlic. I'll dig the latter in another week or two.

Curiously, Slovenians count more consistently than Czechs. A head of Anka garlic always has 8 cloves. So when I plant the cloves of 2 heads, I get 16 new garlics. By contrast, a head of Czech Broadleaf garlic has a variable number of cloves. My 2 heads of Czech yielded 25 cloves.

I'll tie bundles of today's garlic, and hang it to dry in the shed. Once dry, I will braid it. Hardneck garlic, of course, doesn't braid very gracefully.

Bob

 

[deluxestogie]

Squash

Each of the 3 mounds of Edmonton Pumpkini has 2 plants. Their foliage is glorious, especially when compared to my yellow crookneck.

The pumpkini are expecting. At least one will have to be sacrificed early on, to see if it is suitable for use as a summer squash. Then we'll see how large they grow when undisturbed. Pure strain zucchini will grow to 2 feet long, and over 8 inches in diameter, if allowed to grow to completion. But by then, the rind is no longer tender, and it must be prepared like a winter squash.

Bob

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

The momentum of my garden is picking up.

Baby zucchini


Baby kabocha squash


The need for a higher trellis has become apparent


Same goes for the peas


First corn cobs of my life


Cucumbers are growing


Strawberries


Tomatillos

 

[deluxestogie]

Prolific garden. Congratulations!

Bob

 

[BarG]

Bob, Unreal how you grow that, mine would be covered in weeds. I been buying garlic and cilantra for my hot sauce, I hope ya'll have a better growing veggie season than I had this year.

 

[deluxestogie]

Twisted View of a Lovely Morning

Bob

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

Kabocha #1.

 

[OldDinosaurWesH]

The season is on. My Raspberry bushes have been doing well this year. I must have gotten good pollination.



Photo 1, ready to pick! Everbear variety. I also have a seasonal variety. The plate full of picked fruit are seasonal berries. The everbear variety is sweeter than the seasonal variety. The everbears aren't as strongly flavored as the seasonals.

Photo 2, not ready to pick These are Marionberries, and you have to let them get dead ripe before picking. Even when dead ripe these are fairly tart. Marionberries are a cross between regular Blackberries and two varieties of Raspberries. Marionberries also have big sharp (painful) thorns!

Photo 3, Nearly ready to eat. Better clean them first.

My roses are also doing well this year. I guess not having to compete with tobacco for sunshine helps.



Photo 4, variety "Key Largo"

Photo 5, variety Mr. Lincoln. Mr. Lincoln is also fragrant.

Wes H.

 

[deluxestogie]

Very appetizing. And a beautiful bounty.

My Prime Jim blackberries sport near-lethal thorns. (Yes. Big thorns. That's the ticket! That's why I don't prune them and weed them the way I should.) I grew golden raspberries and Heritage red raspberries for about 10 years, before they just gave up the ghost. (Japanese beetles helped usher them to the great beyond.)

My process of "cleaning" raspberries, if eaten in the garden, was to blow off tiny bugs, then toss the raspberries into my mouth quickly enough that I couldn't notice any additional bugs I may have missed. Blackberries just go straight to the fridge. I worry that washing either of them would cause them to rapidly mold.

Bob

 

[OldDinosaurWesH]

Yes, those Marionberries aren't hardly worth the effort. They don't produce much yield, and the thorns seem to be pretty much unavoidable. Unfortunately, I didn't know that when I planted the darn thing. Since they are established now, I probably couldn't get rid of them if I wanted to. But, my tasty raspberries make up for it in volume and flavor. And best of all they are either thornless (seasonal variety) or have small not amounting to much thorns (everbear).

I've been known to go over to the river dyke and pick the wild blackberries. Giant mounds of vines. I take my hand shears and leather gloves. My hand shears and I get pretty merciless with those wild berry bushes. Nice clump of berries down in there...Chop, chop, chop...Berries in hand! Black Berries are pretty tasty too.

Wes H.

 

[deluxestogie]

This little jug of a pumpkini looks like a pint jar. I may turn it into a jar of pickle wedges today.

Bob

 

[deluxestogie]

I went with a quart-size pumpkini for the pickle wedges. Even though it is only early July, the center is becoming crumbly and somewhat seedy. So it is definitely more pump than kini. I'll allow the others to seek their destiny as Halloween decorations or pie ingredients.

The vegetable was sliced into fat wedges, the exact length of the jar to the shoulder. The brine temperature is hot enough to scald the surfaces, but not cook the vegetable.

Brine (heated to ~140°F):

• 2 cups distilled water
• 2 tbsp pickling salt (just avoid iodized salt)
• 2 tbsp white vinegar (5%)

Added to empty quart jar at the bottom (totally arbitrary):

• some mustard seed
• some black peppercorns
• some dill seeds
• 5 small garlic cloves, peeled
• 1 small, dried chile Japones

This will sit out on the counter for a week or three (to complete lactic fermentation), then will go into the fridge for a few more weeks.

Bob

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

Cool. I'll have to try that recipe. Interesting shape of that pumpkini. I never cut into a young one. Is surprisingly light colored.

 

[OldDinosaurWesH]

Bob:

Is the recipe you posted a generic pickling recipe or vegetable specific?

Photo of today's pick.



Left are the Everbear variety, and right are the Seasonal variety. Different flavors. Both good! Especially good as a topping on vanilla ice cream.

Yesterday's pick combined with today's pick make about a gallon. Those that don't get consumed immediately, get frozen. Tasty treats next winter.

One more good pick left, and then the season is about done for these.

Wes H.

 

[deluxestogie]

Is the recipe you posted a generic pickling recipe or vegetable specific?

That recipe works as described for any vegetable that does not require cooking during the pickling process. (e.g. if you don't cook broccoli, the pickles are rock hard). It relies on the lactic acid produced by the living vegetable as it soaks in the salt solution. The vinegar is a token amount that I add to assure that the solution is acidic, but is not enough to accomplish the pickling.

So this is the sort of recipe you might also use for fermenting peppers. Lactic acid pickles are crisper in texture, and are not as sour as vinegar pickles. It's my modified version of an old Sephardic recipe used in Rhodes, Greece, a hundred years ago. The original recipe uses no vinegar, only salt, and the brine is never heated. I believe my version (slight vinegar added, and a scalding brine) results in fewer "off" ferments. Also, if you cook the vegetable, there will be no lactic acid production, since it is a metabolic process.

I use it for cukes (sliced, wedges or whole), green tomatoes, all sorts of peppers, whole garlic cloves. For green tomato pickles, I prefer to use tiny, green Roma tomatoes, sliced in half, but it works well with golf ball sized green tomatoes sliced into wedges.

Bob

EDIT: This recipe is the closest I've ever come to pickling cukes that taste like Claussen pickles.

 

[ChinaVoodoo]

I normally use no vinegar. I have airlocks in the jar lids, and use a weight to keep everything submerged to prevent bad fermentation. I still get them now and again, but usually all I need to do is scoop the mold off the top and add a tablespoon of vinegar, then put it in the fridge.

 

[OldDinosaurWesH]

Well, it seems to be something new everyday. Or at least new to me. I was setting in my chair in the back yard watching the tobacco grow, when I observed a squirrel down on the ground picking and eating my raspberries. I didn't know the little beasties ate raw fruit. Fortunately, his little legs are pretty short, so he couldn't get at most of the fruit. I would have been nice to get a picture. Oh well...A rose will have to do.

Wes H.





Rose "Veterans Honor."
A very nice shade of red.