I searched and could not find the old thread. We have delicious beefsteak tomatoes, cilantro, green peppers (amazing as we have had no luck for the past 2 years), zucchini and fuzzy melon squash. I am hoping they will continue to produce throughout the next month. Oh, my goodness, those tomatoes are the BEST.

My Mom's peony bushes bloomed, flowered and went. My Impatient plants are full and bushy. I wish there were annuals that would bloom annually. I have never had luck with them.

How's your garden doing/

So far I can't complain. We had a hot dry month from mid June to mid July, but seeing some rain and better temperatures now. Every year we have something that just keeps producing. This year is the year of the cucumber. But our cucumbers look great, and we are eating and canning them. Have had lots of lettuce, chard, carrots and beets. Bad luck in the peppers and summer squash, but we have a second planting of zucchini and peppers will produce well through October. There is still hope for them. I buy little produce for six months of the year; and I put up a lot of food. It really cuts down on grocery needs, and I haven't felt the pinch of higher grocery prices between all the produce I put up and my Kroger shops for other things.

In my area, this appears to be the year climatologically for members of the cucurbits family. I have been inundated with cucumbers of all varieties and summer squash. I have many watermelons, cantaloupes, and honeydew growing, which are already quite large. I planted 4 varieties of lettuce and kale and am keeping multiple families supplied. However, tomato and bell pepper production is much lower than last year, but sufficient for us and a few friends and family members. Basil and marigolds (good companions for many of the other plants) are thriving. I planted early (for this region) at the very end of April, so some plants are already reaching the end of their lifespan.

Normally, I have around 100 plants (vegetables, herbs, and fruits). This year I made the decision to go smaller. I ended up with 28 plants, along with two 25' rows of green beans. That's still more than I had planned, but I had several volunteer plants come up out of my compost. Some of them took off, so I decided to replant them in the garden. I was about three weeks late getting stuff planted due to my sister being in the hospital, so my stuff did not get into the ground until the third week of May.

Everything went well at first. The plants established well. Then, about a month ago, I mistakenly left the door to the garden open all night. The deer wandered in and munched on several tomato plants and really worked over my cucumbers. Normally they do not bother the cucumbers because of the prickly leaves, but I'm in the city and city deer will eat just about any greenery. I was not sure the cucumbers would make it, but they have bounced back as have the tomatoes. There has been an awful cucumber disease that has gone around these parts the past two years which has ended the cucumbers early. This year, no disease. In fact, all my plants have been disease-free so far.

Around the time the deer got in, my groundhog that lives outside the garden area found his way in. He normally isn't a problem because I take care of him, but he could not resists those green beans and he worked them over pretty good. Then, I found him out there one afternoon mowing down my 3 dill plants. I had to evict said groundhog from the property. Wherever he has moved on to, he is now destroying someone else's plants and not mine.

The green beans are not doing good. We are getting some, but not nearly enough worth stringing and cooking. I have been tempted to take them down, but most of them are leafing out again, so maybe I'll get a good late season harvest.

Up until a few weeks ago we were in a drought. Then, over a two-week period, we had over a foot of rain. This resulted in a handful of tomatoes splitting. I seem to be past that now. I have not been good at pruning suckers this year. I've been out there the past couple of evenings pruning and tieing up vines. Everything looks good now.

One disappointment I have is that I also had several beefsteaks plants. Apparently, either the nursery put the wrong tag on them or someone thought it would be funny to swap tags. Every single one of them has turned out to be cherry tomatoes. We eat those, too, but I already had two Sweet 100s planted, and several of the volunteers turned out to be cherry. Another of the volunteers looks like ones we buy from the store, and they are good.

My spearmint, which is 3 years old, had taken over the garden. I dug up about 80% of it back in the spring and moved it out front. It is doing well. The chunk I left in the garden is getting out of hand though. My oregano, which is also 3 years old, is going crazy. I've never had rosemary survive a winter here, but mine from last year did, and it is standing nearly 3 feet tall now.

As for peppers, rather than grow the regular bells, I grew Mexibells. They are smaller, and are a cross between jalapeño and a bell. I also grew jalapeños, tabasco, banana, and serrano peppers. I'm not doing any canning this year as I still have a cabinet full of stuff from last year. So, I'm just enjoying everything fresh and giving a lot of stuff away.

I hope everybody's garden continues to do well.

We just planted tomatoes and cucumbers. The tomatoes are doing great. We have so many and they are delicious. I brought a bunch to work yesterday for my vulture co workers and they were thrilled.

Mine is pretty sad this year. My pepper plants didn't take off, neither did my spinach or dill. My tomatoes are coming in, and so far one zucchini. Basil is doing fine.
I started late this year and then our weather was a little goofy so I'm glad I got tomatoes and hoping to get more zucchini.
And like ServiceAward, I have some spearmint that's taking over.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 07/30/2024 12:53PM by joanna81.

I am loving all of your crops. My neighbor gives us Kombucha squash, spinach, grapes, cucumbers and hot green peppers. She started her cilantro way before us. Asked if we wanted. Yes, tiny bag please. She brought over a huge bag.

Popped back in here to give an update. In the past week, I have recorded over 13" of rain. That's on top of the foot of rain I mentioned in my previous posts. This has not been good. I picked about 40 tomatoes today that had split due to the excess water. T.S. Debby is headed this way and we could easily see another foot of rain from it. I know what will follow: Disease. It is almost a guarantee when you have this much water in a short period of time. I also had some plants damaged in a storm on Friday. I may be calling it quits for the year sooner rather than later. This may go down as my worse year for gardening ever.

I planted Bush Beefstake Tomatoes and they did very well. The other varieties of tomatoes were less thrilling. I planted 4 varieties of summer squash and all succumbed to squash bugs. I planted green beans, 4 varieties and none did well because of the heat. I planted 4 varieties of personal sized watermelons and they are doing well. My shallots, onions and garlic did not do well so i pulled them all up. I planted a new variety of sweet pepper and love them so much I will be planting again.

When I lived in Dallas, I used to get peppers in early summer. If i left the plants alone, they would not produce in the heat of the summer, but come fall, I'd get more peppers.

Perhaps this will enlighten someone here.

@wrosie. I have informed my DH of this before. He continues to pull them out. It's difficult when you have interfering gardeners.

I love cooking with fresh herbs so focus this year is reg basil, thai basil, greek basil, oregano, cilantro, reg thyme, lemon thyme, parsley, chives, pineapple sage, dill and rosemary. Only veggies this year 2 cherry tomatoe plants, cajun bell pepper and thai chili peppers.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/12/2024 02:34AM by Zek.

Nothing like tomatoes from the garden!

@Madetoshop wrote:

I searched and could not find the old thread. We have delicious beefsteak tomatoes, cilantro, green peppers (amazing as we have had no luck for the past 2 years), zucchini and fuzzy melon squash. I am hoping they will continue to produce throughout the next month. Oh, my goodness, those tomatoes are the BEST.

My Mom's peony bushes bloomed, flowered and went. My Impatient plants are full and bushy. I wish there were annuals that would bloom annually. I have never had luck with them.

How's your garden doing/

Nothing like tomatoes from the garden!

@Datagirl wrote:

We just planted tomatoes and cucumbers. The tomatoes are doing great. We have so many and they are delicious. I brought a bunch to work yesterday for my vulture co workers and they were thrilled.

@Zek wrote:

I love cooking with fresh herbs so focus this year is reg basil, thai basil, greek basil, oregano, cilantro, reg thyme, lemon thyme, parsley, chives, pineapple sage, dill and rosemary. Only veggies this year 2 cherry tomatoe plants, cajun bell pepper and thai chili peppers.

I love the cajun bell. Absolutely delicious. Plus, I think it grows better than the regular bells.

I had 3 zucchinis ready to go so I made strawberry-zuc muffins last night.
Tomatoes are coming!

We haven't had much rain and hubs had a hospital stay last week so I haven't tended much to the garden the past two weeks or so, but we have cooler temps so at least things aren't cooking.

We love the tomatoes. They are so delicious. we are going to turn into tomatoes, lol. Yesterday, my Mom and I made 4 tomato pies. One went to my neighbor, we devoured the other 3.
My neighbor brought over mint and cucumbers today.

My garden is struggling in this drought. But we have plenty of cucumbers, carrots and beets.

One potato plant yielded a small bowl. Smashed potatoes will be nice for supper.

Tomatoes look terrible. Had frost, coil weather then hot and dry. Worst crop ever. I'll be buying canned tomatoes this winter. Luckily there's a couple cherry tomato plants in pots on the deck. They're loaded.

Raspberries didn't produce for the first time. Peas didn't do well. I'll have to check on beans.

A surplus and jungle of mint leaves in a corner. The previous homeowner received it from the previous neighbor. My neighbor and I, the current homeowners, see the traces and aftermath. However, we’re not green thumbs.

Also, a friend planted some Asian leaves. I am not sure what it is exactly called and how she did it, but it grows well and plentiful in bunches. They are medium-sized. Every once in a while when I grill or BBQ, I wrap the small pieces of tender meat with the fresh picked leaves. It takes like a bitter mixture of mint and basil.

@Okie, I think I know what you are talking about. My Mom says it may be gai choy. Delicious with a slightly bitter taste. We love it but never did it have a minty flavor Enjoy!

@Madetoshop I looked up pictures of gai choy, and these appeared to be too thick and long. (That's what she said. Sorry, I couldn't help it.) I checked with my friend, and they are perilla leaves.

LOL Okie! I have never had Perilla leaves. I told my Mom and we shall look for them. We frequent Asian markets. Will ask DDs to look next time they go to Korea town for Karaoke. Oh, the places they go!

Dear daughters, correct? Sorry, I'm slow.

I like to have them raw, but I believe it's also sold where it's prepared in a pickled and garlic soy sauce and chili flakes. Recently, I've taken to a lot of Asian foods and vegetables. Very clean and healthy.

Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 08/26/2024 02:32AM by Okie.