Our garden is coming in like crazy. We have green beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, malabar spinach, peppers, and okra that needs to be picked about every day.
The squash and zucchini haven’t done as well as usual this year. The plants look good just not much production, although the squash is way ahead of the zucchini.
The succession plantings we did, mostly beans, are beginning to bloom. And a few of the beans and cucumbers we replanted after tearing out the old plants are beginning to poke through the ground.
I expect we’ll have our first mess of Mississippi Pink Eye peas by the first of next week. The winter squash is sprawling out of the garden into the driveway. As I peek through the jungle I spy several butternut squash and cushaws, but not one pumpkin! Usually our pumpkins do good.
The winter squash we planted in the new ground behind the greenhouse has started running rampant too, but I’ve not seen any squash on it yet.
Our melons have really produced this year, I’m hoping they do good between now and getting ripe enough to eat…and that we eat them instead of the wildlife.
Potatoes, cabbage, and beets all need to be harvested. We had hoped to pull out all the cabbage last week since the signs are right for kraut this week, but it didn’t happen.
Even though the summer garden is still going strong I’m already planning for fall. I think I’ll plant more turnips than usual this year and am planning to put some of them in the area where the beets are now.
Last night’s video: Simple Recipe for Dilled Beans.
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Pink eyed purple hulls were planted as along as my dad grew a garden. They are delicious! I enjoy reading everyone’s posts about their gardens and what they are growing. Tipper, when I was a child I loved raw turnips too!! I would pull one up and my dad would cut the stems down and peel it. It was like eating candy! So good!! I also remember him planting crowder peas and also dixie lee peas but the favorite by far was the purple hulls.
Our squash and zucchini are acting like yours–beautiful plants but few squash. I started pruning them last year and they really produced. Don’t know what’s going on this year–maybe the terrible heat.
We are having more come in than we can put up. My cabbage is ready & I’m going to try for kraut again. Lots of cucumbers and the most beautiful tomatoes we have ever had. I am oohing & ahhing with every one I pick. We are always generous with sharing our produce but it’s really hard for me to let go of these gorgeous tomatoes.
I tried Hakurei salad turnips for the first time in 2019. Not growing, just eating. They were so light and delicate tasting. Our family ate them like apples, they were so good. Have you tried that variety before? Hugs
Valeri-I haven’t ever grown them but they sound great. I have grown a white variety but I think they were something different 🙂
I grew up not so far from you but an expression I thought of recently I don’t think you have commented on. It is “falling off”. This was used to described a person losing weight. Have you also heard this expression?
Gary-I have heard that one 🙂
Tipper, I love that you are planting pink eyed purple hulls! They are one of my very favorites. I like to drop some whole pods of okra in mine as do many people here in the south. Enjoy!
So glad to hear that y’all’s gardens have faired well this year Miss Tipper. Yes it’s definitely a lot of work but the harvest is so rewarding and worth every ounce of sweat that falls to the ground. Our gardens are doing well this year to, our squash (the straight & crooked neck) would be considered our cash crop lol this year, we have really been blessed overall but especially our squash which is my favorite vegetable from the garden. We are eating some every few days, canning some & sharing with friends, family & church family. Which we planted a lot of it to though on purpose! Oh and the ones we miss that get too big we share with our chickens. We are looking forward to and already planning out our fall garden as well.
Thanks for sharing all that you do on here and on YouTube, like I’ve said before, you have really encouraged me to read more since I’ve joined the blind pig and for that ROBBIE LYNN is very grateful. Lol
You make me a smile with your planning for the next and the next. That’s how serious gardening is – no sooner one thing getting ‘done’ than it is time to be preparing for the next thing that follows it.
I have pulled up two short rows of corn and replanted them in more rattlesnake bean. They are coming up now and I have them stuck. Hopefully they will do better than the first planting that the drought all but killed. I left those to see what they would do. Almost all the leaves had dropped but the vines were green. They are trying to struggle back with some new leaves and even a few bloom but recovery is slow.
On another note, I have just about decided the “mystery” volunteer squash I posted about transplanting from the compost pile into the garden is a butternut. The vines are stretching out toward the garden fence and looks like I will have to redirect them before too long.
I also am having trouble growing zucchini. In years past could not give it away. I tried to study it as it has something to do with male and female blooms. I have leaned toward not enough pollinators, and even watched a video on how to remove leaves to give bees and such access. This does not seem the case since tomatoes have done wonderful.
For anybody wondering how to cook turnips, I cook them like a potato. Cut up and fried turnips are great, and better for many health concerns than a potato. Also I love to cut them in chunks and add to any type of greens I cook. Thank you for your daily uplift, and most of all the thought provoking posts.
Gardening can be hard work, a peaceful retreat, joyful surprises, and a great blessing when there is a harvest that feeds our family and to share with friends.
Your garden looks really beautiful! To hear of your good fortune harvesting aplenty is great news! I can’t wait to see your canning jars all filled, shiny and lined up as they wait one by one to picked off the shelf like a store except Wayyyyy better and how about those prices at home? Lol I wish you only success and lots of food. You work hard and you should enjoy the fruits of such labor! There’s nothing better than a terrible cold day and fetching canning jars to make a delicious and hearty meal!!! Also, I’m going to copy you, Tipper, as I plan to make a notebook about dos and donts. I won’t buy my plants from friends fruit stands that are terribly overwatered to start with. I won’t put flour on aphids. I will buy deer repellant by the gallons and put my garden all together behind a fence. We need borders in the garden and elsewhere. That’s all I’m saying… lol and I’m buying seeds from EDEN BROS of NC!!!!
It sounds like y’all are blessed with a good garden this year! I’m happy for you, truly. Have you ever grown rutabagas?
What’s a good resource for checking the signs for sauerkraut making?
JC-I use a planting calendar that comes from a local business. Funeral homes, banks, and feed stores in our area give them out sometimes give them out. You can also look in the Farmer’s Almanac 🙂
So much hard work but also so much enjoyment ❤
Getting ready to put in some winter stuff this weekend…Gonna try a new method of putting up corn today. Will let ya know if it works…lol.
I don’t know if we have ever had a year that everything did good; one year maybe tomatoes do good but not cukes and the next year its the other way around. Would be nice if everything planted did good every year but I guess that’s just nature for you. We will take what we can get though and thoroughly enjoy it because there is nothing like fresh garden grown vegetables!
You will have some wonderful vegetables to eat on from your prolific garden for awhile! That’s crazy the zucchini hasn’t run you out of town yet! Usually zucchini isn’t temperamental about anything and produces like crazy to the point you can’t give it away! I love zucchini, especially fried. I add it to so many recipes. I enjoy hearing about how your garden is doing! Thank you for this update!
Donna. : )
Tipper, what do you do with your turnips? I grew some for the first time as free food for my hogs, but figured we’d give them a try before the hogs & if we like them, we’ll eat them. Our cabbages look amazing, peas going strong, tried mustard greens for a first & like them, now letting some go to seed! None of my winter squash or cucumbers are going to amount to anything! Berries have been excellent this year – going to pick blueberries this weekend.
Please tell Granny that in CNY I started my first run of beans yesterday! and it looks like I will have plenty more bean canning to do in the coming weeks. I grow yellow wax, Blue Lake, & purple.
Patty-We love them stewed like potatoes. I also love to eat them raw with salt 🙂 I have a friend who makes turnip kraut and its good!
Tip, I love to come to your garden and just wander around and look at how beautifully everything is growing. I so impressed with how you have carved your garden space from the side of the mountain and made it into a beautiful wonderland of vegetables and lovely flowers!
You are amazing! You birthed this idea of turning your yard into a garden and you have brought it to fruition….with a little help from the Deer Hunter!
You go girl!
It is always such a blessing when a garden makes.
I have a question for you Mr. Eddings (if Tipper doesn’t mind posting). Do gardeners in upper east TN grow early (also known as ‘garden’ or ‘English’ peas) as a regular thing? I ask because it is too hot here in north GA. I am wanting to move up that direction and am wanting to better understand the gardening situation.
Thanks in advance to each of you.