We’re just beginning to enjoy the summer veggies. Our spring stuff has mostly played out with the exception of a few beets and some lettuce.
Although we didn’t plant as many tomatoes this year, the ones we did plant are coming right along. We have lots of little green tomatoes that will hopefully ripen in the next two weeks or so.
Our okra is growing by leaps and bounds and should sport their first blooms in the next few days.
I have at least two tiny watermelons so starting the plants early in the greenhouse was a good decision.
I have a few other melons growing too, they are Farmer Tim’s cantaloupe and Sow True Seed’s Minnesota Midgets. Silly me can’t remember exactly where each are planted so I’ll have to wait till they ripen to figure out which is which.
My candy roaster plants aren’t quite taking off like they usually do and my cucumbers seem slower than usual too. Hopefully they’ll both catch up with the rest of the garden.
Tipper
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What are Candy Rooster plants? I live in Placerville, California in the Sierra Nevada Mtns and have never heard of this plant. I really enjoy learning about the area you live in and have ordered different beans from Sow True Seeds after learning about different beans through your writings. My garden is doing great so far but only picking my raspberries, blue berries, marionberries and boysenberries. Oh and also strawberries which we hard last nite in strawberries short cake! Yum! Not much from the garden yet as have to wait until late May to plant up here in the mtns.
Diana-thank you for the comment! So glad you enjoy the Blind Pig 🙂 Go here to find out more about candy roasters: https://blindpigandtheacorn.com/a-craving-for-candy-roasters/
Being from the Northwest, I am not familiar with “candy roasters”. Please inform this 2nd generation “tarheel” I tried becoming a “tarheel” when I was about four years old, as so many of the people here in the valley are from NC. A road crew was working in front of our house filling potholes. One fella asked me if I was a tarheel and I said no but I sure wanted to be. He told me to put a little rock covered with tar in my shoe and wear them. My Mother saw me limping a day or so later and asked what was wrong. When I told her she started laughing and insisted I take the rock out.
Neva-Thank you for the comments! A candy roaster is a large squash and tastes like a pumpkin. You can go here to read all about it: https://blindpigandtheacorn.com/a-craving-for-candy-roasters/ Love the story about the rock 🙂
Our garden is doi g ok so far. It won’t be long till we will have beans to pick and canned. I got 2 green tomatoes last night and fried them up for supper. Mmmm good. We have been getting lots of cucumbers too. I love going out to my own garden and being able to pick things to eat. So much fresher.
Tipper,
My friend, Alan Thompson (he married my Ex wife and we get along), but one time he had a meeting in Idaho. He is a Stomach Doctor and after the meeting, he went on Tour to the Irish Potato country and was amazed when they took him underground. He said it was like a City down there, and didn’t know there was that many taters in the World.
I like any kind of tater, including sweet potatoes, but the Irish Potato from Idaho is my favorite. …Ken
Everything I see in your picture I love to eat but in my late 70’s I’m not planting gardens anymore, I use pots and an actual raised wooden box. The raised wooden box stands about 4 ft high and the legs sit on cement pavers right next to our patio. I really have enjoyed just walking out the back door off the kitchen and pulling a handful of tommy toe tomatoes off or a green pepper. This year I put another huge pot by it and planted my regular tomato plant. They have tiny tomatoes on now but if it stops raining so much I know they will take off growing. Who doesn’t love picking a ripe tomato from your own garden. It can’t be beat! OKRA – I’m the only one in my family that loves Okra and that is probably due to the fact that I grew up eating it from a teen to now. I love it stewed or cut up tossed in corn bread and fried in an old black iron skillet. Years ago I was down in New Orleans and had some Gumbo. It was so delicious and I am sure the Okra in it made a big difference, at least it did for my taste buds.
I love my candy roaster plants, and the “oldest” ones now have two sets of leaves. It makes me feel happy just to look at them- even the first leaves grow so large that it helps me be patient when the rest of my little plants (cucumbers, okra, beans, turnips, kale, melons) seem to be growing so slowly. My baby goats, on the other hand, seem to be growing before my eyes! I picked up Rocket yesterday and said “oof!” 🙂
I planted okra on the 16th in peat pots. 50 seeds, two per pot. The 1st came up on the 21st. Now there are 12 up and growing. I plan to put them in the ground when about half of them are growing. I don’t need all 50 okra plants but they say okra has a bad germination rate. We’ll see.
Oh, those tomatoes sound SO good! There is nothing in the world like a tomato straight out of the garden!! I am glad you are seeing good results already and hope the Lord continues to bless all of your labors!
My tomato plants look like small trees with tons of green Brandywine, Cherokee Purple and Delicious fruit. Sometimes the huge vines will result in fewer tomatoes, but not this year. I was so proud of my garden, I took pictures after I hoed it Friday. Now it looks like a jungle with all the rain we have had. The melons are about the size of a quarter and are hiding everywhere. If I could get in the garden, I may be surprised at what I find. It will be awhile before it dries out with another alert day on tap here in KY. My green beans are blooming and reaching for the sky.
My potted tomatoes on the deck are doing great. I have them on rollers so I can
roll them under the eaves when the storms pop up. The rain has been so heavy
I was afraid they would float out of their pots.
Last year I ordered puslee (purslane) from sow true seed. I finally got around to planting it this year. It bigger than any volunteers I’ve had before. I didn’t know that Japanese beetles like it too. I hate those monature june bugs.
Mine is doing well also. Plenty of rain has really helped, though we went nearly two weeks without any in late May-early June. That happens most years.
Just starting to get tomatoes, jalapenos, okra and one lonely bell pepper. But I have been picking white half-runner, Contender, cranberry and October beans for about three weeks. The cranberry bean seed came from a store-bought package and the October beans from shelleys we bought at the farm market. As usual the W1/2R beans are out the top of the poles and twisting around each other in the air. I should have Golden Bantam corn about Independence Day.
Growing some Beauregard sweet potatoes again this year, sprouters from some I grew awhile back. Pretty much an experiment. I am burying a part of the vines when they get about 3 feet away from the mother plant just to see what they make in comparison.
Sounds like your garden grows good! The thing I most look forward to is the tomatoes, you all grow the very best tomatoes. When I was a little girl living in Texas, my mom and dad grew some tomatoes in the back yard there. They were from here, Western North Carolina. They missed the wonderful tomatoes grown in the mountain soil.
They first dug several big holes and put a bushel basket in each hole. Then they filled the basket with a mixture of straw and rich black top soil. I don’t remember exactly where they got the top soil but I remember that they drove somewhere and dug it up. I believe that had some seed from home. They really took lots of care with those plants and were rewarded for their efforts with lovely, big juicy “Mountain” tomatoes.
They were very pleased and well rewarded for their efforts.