It sounds like some of you had excellent veggie gardens this year. Mine was pretty much a flop. I did get some tomatoes, but they are winding down, probably due to the extra rains we had the end of July and early August. My corn was so puny and pathetic looking, that I just gave up on it and fed it to my horse. I am used to corn that gets 6 ft or taller by July 4th, and makes abundant corn. Maybe I should try some feed corn next year? The greens beans look just as sorry and small. Maybe my chickens will eat them? I am not yet sure about my potatoes, but they were still in ground when those heavy rains arrived. I need to get out there and see if they made anything? I did get about a peck dug up just before the rain arrived. I had planted close to 30 lbs of potatoes, and they ripened just when the rains got here. My radishes bolted and went right to seed, not a radish out there that I have found. At least I have more seed ripening. I will plant more in a week or so, and some carrots. My white onions did so-so. I have a lot of sets from my Egyptian walking onions to plant. The lima beans never even grew. My pumpkins keeled over dead with no pumpkins. The canary melons did good until a week or two ago, when the cucumber beetles showed up and wreaked havoc on them. The horse did enjoy the ones that ripened first. My neice told me that you can plant celery heels and they will grow. They did grow a bit, but something happened to them and they are gone. [Maybe horsey ate them? She ate my parsley last year and killed it.] The zinnias out there are doing well, but I dont think they are edible? I need to haul a lot more manure from horsey's pasture to my veggie garden, and my one son says to add sand to where I want melons to grow. My watermelon plants are very small and no melons, so guess I will feed those vines to the chickens too. Even if they set melons today, they will not ripen before frost.
Oh dear you have my sympathy as this year has been a virtual write off here as well. My lettuce all bolted and my tomatoes are still green and hard. The blackbirds beat me to the blackcurrants and the raspberries didn't fruit much at all. The gooseberries were OK but my cherries, pears and plums were almost non existent this year. Even my apples are small and hard and not worth picking. I think the dreadful, wet spring when there were no bees around to pollinate anything followed by scorching temperatures for weeks on end was to blame. However, we won't give up will we and we'll look forward to having better produce next year - fingers crossed.
Thanks Eileen. Sorry your garden flopped too. I forgot to mention my berries did not do much; and some varmint got every last one of my grapes recently. They were still green a week or so ago when I checked them. Yesterday, there was not a single grape left on the vines. Oh well... At least most of my flowers did pretty good.
Wish you was closer. Would bring you some tomatoes .Been sharing. Gave up on lettuce and radish. And never seen so many apples. One branch broke. Will use wood to smoke .But we need rain badly.
