The abundant rain we’ve had over the last few weeks has turned our garden into a jungle! We are in sore need of some sunshine to dry everything out and encourage the plants to produce.
We’ve been eating tommy-toes and the large tomatoes have just started coming in. We’re still enjoying lettuce and onions from the spring plantings.
The blackberries aren’t as good as last year, but they are producing enough for us to enjoy.
I’m hopeful we will have cucumbers, beans, and peas in the next week or two since we have an abundance of blooms.
While our garden is exuberant in its growth Granny’s is not. Her’s looks down right pitiful.
The soil down there isn’t near as good as ours, but I don’t think it’s ever done this poorly. We did plant it later than ours so maybe it will catch up.
Chatter and I spent yesterday fertilizing Granny’s garden so I’m keeping my fingers crossed that will give all her plants a boost to start growing and producing.
We usually try to do succession plantings of at least a few things so I’m going to aim for planting on the 15, 16, or 17 but my plans may not actually happen 🙂
Here’s the best planting signs for July 2023.
Taurus: good for all root crops and above ground crops 10, 11, 12
Cancer: best for planting above ground and root crops 15, 16, 17
Scorpio: best for flowers and above ground crops 25, 26
Pisces: good for planting and transplanting above ground crops, trees and shrubbery 6, 7
Last night’s video: Matt’s First Tomato Sandwich of the Year.
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Well Tipper I’ve canned 3 batches of cucumbers. got 60 jars so far. I’m gonna try for a 100 or 80 + I’m waiting for my beans and tomatoes. I did get me 2 green tomatoes and fried them tonight for supper along with green beans and corn and barbecue wings. I’m not working now. My little woman fell and is not doing good. No one was with her when she fell. Her oldest daughter has her staying with her now and Hospice has come. She’s quit eating and barely drinks. Remember her in prayer please. She almost 99 yrs. Her name is Annabelle.
So happy for Matt (and you too) on that first tomato sandwich. There is just nothing like that first tomato sandwich. We got our first Cherokee Purple Tuesday and I also had a tomato sandwich hot from the sun on white bread but with Duke’s mayonnaise. We like both Duke’s and Hellman’s, just Duke’s maybe a little bit more, hahaha. Looking forward to many more tomato sandwiches this summer. Sometimes just a tomato sandwich for lunch and/or supper, nothing else. But it is especially good with fried chicken! Still praying for all of you.
I sympathize with Granny! My garden seems to be taking its own sweet time this year, it’s fairly new ground and the soil definitely needs some work. I did pick a 5gal. bucket full of yellow squash and zucchini last night.
My tomatoes are doing awful, they do really well until the start to bear fruit and then the plant withers and dies. I’ve tried everything I can think of. Hoping to have a few of them make it through so I can join Matt in my first ‘mater sandwich of the year.
Have a great day!
Tipper,
I love watching all of your videos and the girls videos also. I am new to your blog and I am enjoying it so much. It is my cup of tea for sure.
We have been eating onions, lettuce and radishes from our garden for a while. We just picked some banana peppers tonight. We have lots of tomatoes-just not any ripe so far. The carrots you pulled the other day looked awesome. We need to try planting those next year. I have never heard of Cherokee purple tomatoes, but they sure look delicious! Looking forward to your blog in the morning already. Blessings from East Central WV!!
God bless Tipper and her family God bless you and your family God bless me and my family!
Hi Tipper,
I haven’t replied to any of your posts for a while and I apologize for that. I’ve been dealing with my own grief from the loss of a family member who is also my best friend. But I want you to know that during this difficult time I have thought about you and your family and kept you all in my prayers. The best advice that I have been given and what I’m sharing with you is that, it’s okay to not be okay. I hope that you are all doing as well as you can during this time. On another note, it’s amazing that you are getting so much rain. I wish we could get some rain here in the Pacific Northwest. It’s so hot and dry. I can’t even remember the last time it rained and we continue to be in a heat advisory. I sure hope my husband and I can move somewhere cooler someday. Appalachian life continues to intrigue me. God bless and please take care.
I loved seeing Matt eat his first tomato sandwich of the year. He has a great tradition going there. It was time to dig out my red potatoes from my 5 gal. bucket & I ended up with about 6 about the size of a pinto bean. Not sure what the problem was but it wasn’t good. Also, my squash is blooming but the blooms keep falling off before they can even start a squash. Hoping for okra & tomatoes but haven’t seen any blooms on either one yet. Hope Granny can get a boost on her garden because I know how it feels to have failure. Hugs!
Tipper
Have you made Matt any fried green tomatoes yet? They would go good with a tomato sandwich.
Ron-I have 🙂
I planted lettuce March 27 and I think thanks to the extended cool weather and abundance of rain, it is still producing enough for a big salad every other day or so.
The potatoes and rutabaga were planted in grow bags April 7. I had a beautiful harvest of red potatoes second week of June, but no rutabagas.
It was a late start on direct planting bush beans and squash in my raised beds because of the cold weather and rain, so they got planted on May 22. Like yours, the beds are lush and green and growing like crazy, but just started flowering a week ago on both. No veggies yet.
More beans are getting planted by the signs this month.
Freestone peaches predicted to be harvested sometime this month here in Ellijay. Lots of canning in the near future
Happy Gardening! Tons of work but so worth it!
I made a long comment earlier about lack of rainfall here. My computer froze and it all went away. Anyway Monday I drug out the hose and sprinkler. It made my stuff take off like a rocket but so did the weeds and grass.
Congratulations to Matt on getting his first tomato sandwich! I am praying Granny’s garden perks up. We are having such heat and the humidity is awful. Another 90 degree day today with it feeling like triple digits. We sure could use some rain but not those awful thunderstorms. Have a blessed day everyone!!!
One thing we cannot do is control the weather, so we go with what we have and do the best we can!
I’ve ate so many Tommy toes gout has set in!! My celebrities are almost ripe, but waiting on Cherokee purple to bloom. Sure hope the fertilizer helps granny’s garden for an abundance of green beans.
Have a wonderful day! God Bless America!
I have terrible gout but tomatoes don’t seem to cause flareups. Tomatoes are high in acid but low in purines. Purines are what the body breaks down into uric acid. The body’s inability to eliminate uric acid from the blood is what causes buildup in the joints resulting in inflammation, swelling and severe pain.I have given up all red meat, most fish, all shellfish and wild game. I live off of cornbread, beans, cucumbers, sweet onions, tomatoes and watermelon. I take allopurinol, colchicine, acetaminophen and diclofenac sodium every day to control and prevent gout flareups. I gave up a lot of foods I love but, lucky for me tomatoes, wasn’t one of them.
If tomatoes cause gout flareups in you, I’m sorry. If you have problems with foods causing flareups you might talk to your doctor about some or all of the medicines I have to take.
I forgot about biscuits. I love mater biscuits. I finally found a good biscuit recipe and I found it right here. It’s Tipper’s whipping cream and White Lily self-rising flour recipe.
I’m happy for you that you’ve gotten rain. I’m having to water my garden. I’ve the weather radar lately and seen storms split and go around me.
I’m convinced I’ve got Moses staff somewhere around here and it’s parting the rain
Ron, the same thing is happening here. I tell everyone it is like my area is the hole in a doughnut. This happens every year. My dear father in law would say “count your blessings, we may not get as much rain but we are not having those bad destructive storms either.” I know for a fact we are paying the preacher.
Jungle? I can relate here in northeast Tennessee. Just woke up one day and went WOW! When did all that growth happen?!
Tipper,
I thought of you this morning as I was reading my Bible, and then you post about gardening. Here ya go: Genesis 1:14: “And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and ƴears;”
Sounds like a trend in the weather reports. Here also, after a dry and cool May, we had a hot and stormy June. Our neighbor had 3 trees down and their power off. Another couple had a tree demolish their porch and break a front window. Can’t figure the garden this year, acting hit or miss. Our rattlesnake beans are just ‘off’, no one certain thing but off-color, not vigorous and with misshapen brittle pods. That’s gardening; never cease learning and no two years the same. Sometimes I think I don’t know anything and am sure I don’t know much.
Loved the first tomato sandwich video……MY DAD lived on tomatoes and like Matt, would not eat them from the grocery store. In the winter I used to see him eat ketchup sandwiches. LOL
Your garden is beautiful! When I was a young girl, my sister and I would spend a week with our aunts. One of them had a garden and we would help especially with harvesting. Then after I married, my mother-in-law had a beautiful garden. So, again I was able to help her. There is nothing like good tasting vegetables! Take care and God bless ❤️
It’s been a few day since I was able to get in my garden without losing my shoes. When the ground finally dried enough to walk on, I found my squash and cucumbers way overgrown and you know how most folks from Appalachia don’t like big seeds in their veggies. My tomatoes are not wipe yet but the green beans are hanging in massive pods like I have never seen before. We are expecting more heavy rain tonight and tomorrow with a few days of calmer weather before more rain moves back in for the weekend. Got to decide if the garden needs my attention more than the grass needs cutting. Wishing you lots of sunshine!
My planter boxes are producing like crazy. Yellow Squash, zucchini, cucumbers, green beans, sugar peas, green beans, green peppers, and tommy-toes. My large tomato is in a big pot by itself and the two large tomatoes so far have bottom rot. I have added lime twice but I may just have to remove it and the soil and next year put new soil in. Happy to see Matt got his first tomato sandwich! I prefer Hellmann’s on my sandwich and I like it pure tomatoes only:) I’m enjoying the tommy-toes but I can hardly wait for that first big tomato sandwich. Hope your extra work down at Granny’s garden helps it to produce a bumper crop of green beans.
Dee, we had the same problem for years, but someone told us to add powdered calcium to our tomatoes and it works! We grow our tomatoes in big pots, too. Just sprinkle the calcium on the dirt arount the plant, and scratch it in and water well. Reapply every two weeks and it should help a lot with the end rot.
Tipper, I have a QUESTION about the planting dates. Does ‘planting’ mean starting seeds or just putting seeds in the ground or actually planting a started seed? I think it means starting seeds no matter where but that is just an uninformed guess.
Mary-I aim for using the signs for all of it 🙂 But I especially try to make sure the signs are right when I’m starting seeds in the greenhouse and in the garden 🙂
Tipper y’all’s garden looks beautiful and I’m sure glad the Deer Hunter got his first tomato sandwich. Our little tub garden has grown like a jungle too and the plants are loaded with green tomatoes with a few blushing, but not near ready to eat. We did plant our cucumbers in the ground and they have started producing, so we are enjoying eating them. I need to try to can a few jars of pickles before the plants stop producing since we are now getting 90+ degree weather with not as much rain. The humidity makes it almost unbearable to go outside. I use to be able to tolerate the heat, but the older I get the less I can stay out in it. Plus the plants don’t seem to like it either. Our lettuce has stopped producing, which is sad, but it was good while it lasted. Our radishes never did come up, but I’ll try again in fall. I’m thankful for any and everything our garden will produce and hoping I’ll get enough to do a little canning too.
Getting old ain’t what it is cracked up to be, but it still beats the alternative. I can’t work in the heat like I use too either. In Aug it would get around 95 degrees on my last job in an air condition plant. We had two big drum fans blowing on us year round even when snow was on the ground on the other side of the wall.
Tomato sandwiches; fresh sliced room temperature tomatoes, light bread, a dab of mayonnaise or salad dressing, a dash of salt and pepper – and life is good! Nothing better than a fresh “mater sammich” any ol time! Always a favorite. Hopefully, a bit of your rain is headed my way; we are hot, hot, hot in the Florida piney woods country! Our water table needs refreshing, right badly. Good luck with Granny’s garden; that bit of fertilizer might jus’ do the trick, Tipper.
PS: Am sure enjoying the recipes in your cookbook; a great read and useful tips on “some good eatin’, for sure”! Well done!
Tipper, I’m delighted you’ve been blessed by the rain, but there comes a time when a blessing can be a curse and TOO MUCH rain or anything can really do a “number” on your garden bounty. Don’t even tell me Granny’s garden is doing poorly! When things aren’t right with dear sweet granny in any way- including the garden, I get downright upset and contankerous. Thanks to you gals and some fertilizing care, I’d say her garden will perk up! I am envious of fresh garden tomato sandwiches, but my cucumbers are coming along so I ate a 3 inch pickler yesterday. One was tasty sweet and the other more bitter than poison! Lol they are not ready, but I had to go for it! Lol. The tomatoes are blooming just now in southern WV. Much love and gardening success to each BP&A reader! Have a good day, all!
Thanks for the update. I’ve been enjoying seeing how beautiful your garden is doing, but I was wondering about Granny’s garden. I know how much she loves her green beans. I hope they end up producing a bountiful crop.
Lots of storms here, lightning killed 31 cows in our county last weekend! Terrible loss for farmers
my tomatoes have been blooming a couple of week so should see some tomatoes soon I have cherokee purple if course, but also planted another heirloom Black Beauty. I am looking forward to trying that one. It’s been called tithe best tomatoes I ever ate” so we will see.
I too look forward to my first tomato sandwich of the summer. must have squishy white bread and Dukrs Mayo. Like Matt use lots of black pepper and no salt. I want to taste thar tomato
Hubby and I watched Matt enjoy his tomato sandwich last nite….goodness, I could almost taste it myself. I know growing your own is so much better. I have been picking mine for almost a month and I can already see them getting scarcer and scarcer. Thinking about replanting for another crop. Hope Granny’s will improve but with what is going on around our country, I just don’t know. God Bless.
Praying your garden produces abundantly with sunshine and that Granny gets lots and lots of green beans.
I have been eating tomato sandwiches for about two weeks. They are made with the early girl tomatoes, my Cherokee Purple have not yet came in. I will trade these days of 90 degrees and above with the feel like temperature over 100 degrees around here for some of your wet days.
There has been some thunderstorms around but none at my home. In a way it is a blessing, there has been damage everywhere the storms have been, two churches damaged, one burned and the steeple on the other one burned and trees blown over.