A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion The Plants and Flowers Forum In the Garden 2019

Strawberry shortcake is good too. Yay for strawberries in your own yard !

I made strawberry freezer jam a few months back and I started taking it to my mother, who has dementia, and she's been eating a jar a day. I guess at 88 years old it doesn't matter what you eat but at this rate it will be all gone in a month. I think I'm going to stop taking it every time I go visit. I've tried to get her to just put it on her toast or on ice cream but she's eating it with a spoon.

Well then it must be good! But yes,perhaps every time you go see her is a bit often to take her a jar. Esp. if it is yummy..and it sounds as if it is...

Sorry to hear of your mom's dementia. I'd get some little 'condiment cups' and bring it to her that way. You can get the little plastic ones with covers at the dollar store here...I think you get 20 for a $1.

I have tiny little cukes starting on the pickling cuke plants....and my pepper plants are starting to form buds.

The Italian tomato plants are forming flowers.

My grape tomato plant has no more red tomatoes and about 5 green tomatoes..my regular tomato plant has 1 tomato and it is just beginning to ripen..then I am done

I am going to try upload a few pics again....bare with me.

If I knew how I would turn the photos for you, but alas I cannot. The whole garden looks great though, I must say.

What is in the raised bed.?

Again it all looks fantastic....and I love your shed..I am so envious !

Thanks...it is a false raised bed. It goes down deep in the ground to keep the raspberries in their own block.

I love my little garden/storage shed.

Yay for the false raised bed. It looks fantastic I must say.

We are plucking radishes.

You are making me hungry.

what do you have growing there Sunny? It's way too hot for radishes here. Love them though.

Great on the tomatoes Junie. I planted 1 cherry tomato plant and it's producing an amazing amount of sweet little tomatoes.

Yes the few times I planted cherry tomato plants I had more than enough little tomatoes for my use and to share.

And thanks

I have radishes, strawberries and baby cukes producing now. The regular cukes/tomatoes, peppers, potatoes and beans are flowering. Blueberries and raspberries are showing their unripe berries. I have a few green tomatoes showing on the cherry type. Carrots aren't doing the best this year though.

Sounds like a nice well rounded garden. Good for you, Sunny.

Your plants look healthy. I don't think I've taken a picture of my vegetable garden this year but I'm growing tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, potatoes, egg plant, bolita beans, okra. My lettuce, green peas, carrots, and radishes have been finished. I have to plant them when it's cold because we get hot too early.

Sounds good.
Sheri, do you get to plant a call garden ?

A fall garden? Every year I say I'm going to plant a fall garden but our weather is so mild that I usually still have the summer stuff in the garden area into the end of September. With this extreme heat, if stuff dies out earlier, I'll plant lettuce and radish seeds. I've found that I don't like kale enough to plant it. One of my sisters loves it and plants a bunch of it. She eats it as a side dish, a soup, and in salads. Go figure. I've thought about trying some butternut squash but it's so hard to peel.

I agree about the garden the most I have ever had was green peppers that didn't make in the summer but did very well in the fall.

About the squash....can you cut it in half, roast it and then scoop it out of it's shell ?

No one but me will eat squash here so I never plant it....I just buy a few at the Fall fair.

I have small pickling cukes growing...I can't wait to start making preserves.

I wish so bad the nerve to can.( In jars, Sunny). I worry about contamination. As a result, even I have left over garden produce, I frone or I made such as I've box pickled beets.

Junie, when I think of the difference on how we can these days to how our past generations did.....I don't worry as much. I don't know how they survived back in the old days with just melted wax to seal and very little vinegar.

I remember my mom buying wax..but as I remember, she just used it to put on top of jelly.

But yes, you are right. You have to wonder if people died and no one suspected the improperly canned items.

Tonight I trimmed up the branches that bore on my blackberries. Then I had to trim some of the bigger branches that are in the way when Rod cuts grass. I thought I should do it while we were having some cooler days.

I noticed that the top growth on my newer raspberry canes are wilted....any ideas?

Is there a borer that attacks raspberry vines? I know with the squash vine borer, the tips of the vines start to wilt then the entire plant dies. I've lost one plant this year to the borer. With squash, if it's caught soon enough, the borer can be cut out of the stem and sometimes the plant will live. Hope this is wrong.

Lots of stuff

This is the Little Lucy okra that only gets 3 feet tall.

I'll check the plant for borers....I've never heard of them around here but we never used to have earwigs either, now we are infested.

Your plants look great. It amazes me to see tomato plants get so tall...well done. I have also never seen an okra...vegetable or plant. How do you cook it?

I don't know why these pictures are so large. I edited them to clickable size. I don't know what I'm doing wrong.

Okra is a vegetable that we eat a lot of in the south. Plants are usually green and get over 6 feet tall and they grow pods. These are unusually in that they're short and red. I cut mine up and fry them. Some people use them in soup (which is good but I don't do that). They can also be roasted in the oven.

No more pictures from me. I've resized and resized and resized and can't figure this out.

Ah k..on the okra.

I tried to resize mine as well and it didn't work. Don't worry about it...please don't stop posting

Sunny do you can bread and butter pickles?

Sheri: how do you fry your okra. My Aunt used to fry them in a flour/corn meal coating. They were wonderful. So when we were still at the farm, I planted some one year...(no red on my okra plant). But anyway my fried ones were slimmy..what did I do wrong ?

Yes, those are my favorite.

Junie I only use flour and just a minimal dusting. Maybe the grease wasn"t hot enough at the start. I cook mine til a bit crunchy.

Sunny what"s your bread and butter recipe?

Thanks for the idea, Sheri.

Watered our 3 new trees, my lirope, my hostas, my house plants, and my potted plants.
I also filled 6 gallons with good water so I can water things one time before turning off my water softener system yet once again. I hate doing that.

Why do you turn it off Junie?

I"ve got a bunch more flowers on the egg plant. Guess I"ll have to break down and eat a few more.