What have you done today in the Garden?

Picked my first few Cherry tomatoes.





Harvested the spinach last night. I didn't get to it while we had company and it had quickly bolted. I will drop some off for a neighbour today, keep enough for a final spinach salad and blanch/chop/freeze the rest this morning. Thank goodness for being able to get a wheelbarrow into the house out of all of the mosquitos and black flies.








First big harvest is always exciting

 

Thank you Sjoerd. Hubby had a great idea for my leaves and straining them. I put a burlap sack into another bucket and poured it through that as a sieve. Once it had drained, I added some more leaves ( my plants have slown down considerably now - and I only had a fraction of the first tea) and then used the sack as a tea bag for the next bucket. My toms aren't quite ready for a watering yet so that will be tomorrow I think. I have warmer weather coming.

 

Mel— that is a good harvest you have there. Those toms look delicious. Quite a significant harvest of spinach. You have a bit of work to do there, mate.

So you used burlap to strain your comfrey tea. That must have worked pretty well. I usually make so much that I put the excess concentrate in a large wash softener bottle so that I don’t have to go through the spilling ritual each feed.
I usually add new leaves to the spent ones until I need room, them the old foliage goes onto the compost.

Here, it was more harvesting of. Bean sorts and Swiss chard. It was enormous, so after supper, you know what we did— blanched and froze-in. We gave some of our harvest to an elderly lady downstairs, and she was over the moon. She had an agricultural background and so, can truly appreciate the veg that we offer her from time to time.

The gardening lady is back from vacation now, so my custodial duties for her garden are over.

Tomorrow I will go into the bees for a little check.

 

@Melody Mc. what a nice harvest! I'm impressed, you are so much further north but you have earlier toms.

Today I emptied the first two container grown potatoes (in that topic), planted an unhappy containerized alstroemeria into the ground (one less container to water), mowed about an acre of grass with ambitions to be prairie. Gave up when the mower blades got stuck.

 

So many beautiful garden photos here. I really enjoy looking at them all.

Here are squashes I harvested today. One is a yellow summer squash, variety is "Saffron". The other is a traditional Italian variety, "Costata romanesco", which I grow from saved seeds. Much more "meaty" than modern hybrid zucchini.

 

Yes, I overplant too.
I like those planters a lot. I'm saving some cedar fencing to make another planter for my garden too. Now that I know how to do drip irrigation, I think the planters will work very well.

 

I had to get the chainsaw out and deal with the top half of a middle aged oak that decided to break in half. I have learned to watch for small sprouts out of the bark working their way back down the trunk as a sign of tree trouble to come. This one had them but a monster near the house does too. I used to call them suckers but an arborist I hired called them advantageous growth. The big cherry lost a limb too so I dealt with the leaves and branches but gave the bigger wood to my neighbor for his BBQ efforts. I like those green leaves for the compost pile and there were plenty! I picked the garden of weedin' and got the outside stuff battened down and ready for the big storms coming down. Then I fried some tomatoes but that is a sketchy garden connection!

 

[QUOTE="Then I fried some tomatoes but that is a sketchy garden connection![/QUOTE]

NOT so sketchy!! Green tomatoes and I are bed fellows, and one that I never know what to do with other than slowly ripen indoors. I'd really be interested in how you harvest/cook these!

 

So jealous that you have these already! And very much appreciate the info about the Zuch!

 

You could make green tomato chutney, or do this

 

Picked some more fruit, the raspberries have come to an end but i did get a bumper crop this year, 6lb.5oz. All gone into the freezer and take a few out at a time to have on breakfast.I threatened them that i would dig them up.

 

@Melody Mc. What a haul!!! Is that heaping pile all spinach?

@Daniel W your zuc & yellow squash are beautiful!

I am having a last minute push to prepare my gardens for a five day absence: watering, weeding, picking etc

We had 5 ingredients from the garden for dinner last night:. Lettuce & snap peas, basil, oregano and three baby zucs. It was all good. Oh! And garlic scapes. So 6.

A groundhog is at it again in my home garden. Sigh. They are rather cute though, so there is that.

 

@Logan Thank you so much for sharing this video. I usually end up ripening most of my crop indoors, using those cardboard inserts that come in a case of fruit? For each tomato to have a spot, then cover with newspaper. I had never heard of a banana! That is great.

Green tomato chutney and fried green tomatoes are definitly on the list this fall. I have made green salsa, but ...meh. hahaha I gave it to my kids.

 

Today was an early start just to make time for the garden. It was 6 Celcius, and a heavy dew, so I wore three layers of shirts with bug spray between each, insulated gum boots and dove in at 5 am. The No-see-ums love the early morning with the stirred up soil, but I persevered. ( pats self on back for not getting any bites or running into the house like a crazy woman) A black fly did climb inside my ear though, but I came and woke up Hubby who thoughtfully and calmly helped get it out.

Four rows of carrots were thinned, and broccoli was harvested. Peas, beans and lettuce were weeded. Romaine lettuce was thinned and new seed sown. I have a wheelbarrow of baby carrots to clean and blanch/freeze today, as well as some broccoli.

The greenhouse was watered with comfrey tea ( and I managed to not get it all over myself this time - PU ). The strawberry bed was weeded and pine needle mulch was placed under all of the plants. I have some berries that look like they may enjoy the warm week ahead.

The lygus bugs seem to have calmed down. They are in the flowers in the hay field now.

Corn was watered and fertilized. I squashed two slugs climbing on my bag of eco friendly slug bait....not sure how effective that stuff is.But maybe that is a good sign. Little slugs are everywhere with all of the wet cool weather. Not the giants that many of you get though - thankfully. Those ones look like they could eat a head of lettuce in one bite.

The pump goes in today, so I hand watered the squash, zucchini, corn and artichokes hopefully for the last time. Artichokes are showing their heads, but some are very unhappy from the Lygus bug invasion. Hopefully the will taste okay when we try them in a few days.

After a warm up, I will be weeding and thinning the upper veggie garden - the spinach and lettuce section will be retired for the summer and covered in lawn clippings today.

 

I feel for you with your groundhog Cayuga. I had one in the woodshed two years ago. We thought he was very cute ( And it was funny to say we had a woodchuck in the woodshed ) We would watch for him, oohing and awing. Then the little cute fur ball turned into a monster over night. First I woke to only stems in my parsley garden. The next day he found the lettuce. I'm pretty sure it was him that made his way to the carrots. He was no longer a cute guest after that and the Woodchuck was evicted from the Woodshed. He hung around in the rocks on the mountain side for a while, but seemed to eventually move on. He didn't.....we went under the house and began to tear insulation out under the floor of the kitchen .... I was amazed at the level of garden and home destruction. The cuteness is a ruse After that second eviction notice, and Angus giving him barks and stink eye all day, he moved on.

I still think they are cute though - just not when they are here. I hope he only shares your garden and doesn't take too much.