|
Post by guimauve on May 26, 2014 9:04:51 GMT -5
It is FINALLY done freezing most nights, so I put the garden in yesterday...I have:
9 tomatoes (a variety) 9 peppers (mixed sweet and hot, and a bunch of different kinds) 6 cucumbers ?? MANY summer squash (we don't have that here, so I grow enough to get part way through the year) 3 ground cherries 12 purple beans 12 snow peas 10 feet of potatoes
The perennial patch has:
1 plum tree (1st fruiting year!!! I grew it up from a pit) LOTS of rhubarb 10 ft of strawberries 4 kinds of mint chives summer savory lavender rosemary bay bush perilla hyssop
The herb patches have:
dill summer sage winter savory golden oregano greek oregano purple basil common basil lemon thyme
|
|
|
Post by Valerie on May 26, 2014 10:09:02 GMT -5
Yay, Guimauve! Sounds marvelous! Where do you live that y'all are just finally warming up? I have a baby watermelon. It's about this long: ----------------- I hope this is the first year we actually get to eat a watermelon from the garden!
|
|
|
Post by guimauve on May 26, 2014 10:39:37 GMT -5
I live near Montreal (QC) right now...summer doesn't come until July, and even then, only for a few days here and there! Gets warm enough to grow short crops or frost resistant stuff like brocoli, carrots, etc. I tent the garden by middle August at night to be able to let the tomatoes, peppers, etc mature enough to harvest.
|
|
|
Post by Valerie on May 26, 2014 11:16:50 GMT -5
Wow, that is so different from here! I'm in south Georgia, almost in Florida. I'm glad y'all are still able to grow stuff!
|
|
|
Post by guimauve on May 26, 2014 12:06:18 GMT -5
WAY different! My parents live in central FL, their "easy" growing season is the opposite from me. I have managed keeping a few interesting things alive though - I have some nopal that stays alive/grows, but I can only get it to flower, not warm enough for long enough to get it to fruit...
|
|
|
Post by upnorthlady2 on May 26, 2014 12:23:10 GMT -5
Guimauve - I'm in northwestern MN, so our weather is similar to yours. I have two huge gardens (about 10,500 sq ft), but we sell our veggies and herbs at the farmer's market here. I also do lots of canning and freezing. I put out about 48 tomato plants in varieties, 36 peppers in varieties, many rows of green beans and just about every kind of veggie and herb you can think of. I'm only about a 1/3 of the way done, so I'm taking a break from the heat. The only fruits we do are apples and grapes, and I take advantage of the wild fruits around here: chokecherries, wild plums, highbush cranberries, wild raspberries, and whatever rhubarb folks will give to me.
|
|
|
Post by guimauve on May 26, 2014 12:59:56 GMT -5
WOW Patty! I would LOVE LOVE LOVE to have gardens like that!
Ds and I forage a fair bit, over the weekend we found about 5 lbs of wild garlic, 30 lbs of fiddleheads, 4 large shopping bags of various greens/flowers (wild violets, lilacs, dandelion, etc.). It was a good find :-)
|
|
|
Post by Valerie on May 26, 2014 20:52:43 GMT -5
I'm scared to death of foraging. I would want a real live person with me to show me the right thing. I just don't trust myself to recognize stuff from a picture.
|
|
|
Post by guimauve on May 27, 2014 8:14:04 GMT -5
Valerie, I don't have a HUGE repertoire, and my list is probably mostly obvious/common stuff. If you've ever had general access to wild green spaces or if you garden I am sure there is stuff you recognize, but maybe didn't know it was edible.
|
|
|
Post by michelle on May 27, 2014 10:10:25 GMT -5
I'm scared to death of foraging. I would want a real live person with me to show me the right thing. I just don't trust myself to recognize stuff from a picture. I'm with Valerie. I would love to have someone take me foraging to teach me what is edible and what will kill me.
|
|
|
Post by guimauve on May 27, 2014 11:00:20 GMT -5
Well...I pick up stuff like blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, strawberries, rhubarb...depending on where you live, those are probably most easy to identify. I don't think I gather anything that has a nasty look alike...so there is little confusion if any, and if there ever is, I never take it. I don't do wild fungus even though I haven't failed yet at identifying them...
Wild onions, garlic and scapes, dandelions, chickory, nasturtium, clover, pansy, lilac - same thing, easy ID by smell or sight. Mint family as well.
Some I have learned along the way, like violets, sorrel, plantain, fiddle heads, purslane...it is amazing though once you have identified something correctly the first time how you can spot the right one right away.
Do you think any of your local preserve centers would have a scout or information? That is how I learned a few of mine - at a nature park...
|
|
|
Post by Valerie on May 27, 2014 18:58:42 GMT -5
Oh yeah, I can identify clover! We have yellow flowers in some yards here that some people call dandelions, but my mom told me they're not real dandelions. I guess they had real ones in MI, so she knows.
|
|
|
Post by Valerie on Jun 3, 2014 9:59:59 GMT -5
Well, the squash and zucchinis are making. We had a week or so where it was cool in the morning and the bees weren't getting to the blossoms before the sun hit them and closed them up, but that's fixed now. I counted 74 tomatoes in various stages of development the other day. Some are from this pack of heirloom rainbow mix seeds that I got, so I'm waiting to see what kinds they are. One is definitely a Great White. I've grown that before. It makes really big "white" (think pale yellow) tomatoes, but unfortunately, it doesn't seem to make very many before the heat takes it out. My one little watermelon is about this long now: -----------------------------------------------------, and getting fatter every day. The green beans are starting to make, too. Something has been eating holes in my okra and taking the tops off a few of the beans in raised bed #2. I thought it was slugs or snails, but yesterday I caught a couple nasty little worms (they look like those tomato fruitworms) in the act (I squished 'em). I dusted all that with sulfur last evening. It's making me sneeze my head off when I go out there!
|
|
|
Post by michelle on Jun 4, 2014 7:24:21 GMT -5
Okra, yum
|
|
|
Post by Valerie on Jun 4, 2014 10:18:02 GMT -5
Last night I was finding recipes for small batch pickles, and I plan to pickle a good bit of the okra this year, if it produces like it did last year!
|
|