My garden is on the border of 10A and 10B. But that is not really the whole story. It does not consider my highest temperature this year has barely been over 70F for a moment or two while a few miles inland the same 10A&B may be 20 degrees warmer. My cucumber patch has become compost. The last attempt for corn tasseled to early and discarded. Too late for green shelling peas so I am trying fava beans. Obsession corn seed is in the mail. Any suggestions for cooler weather summer veggies? My lettuce patch is doing well and I do hope to try Spinach again in a few months. Please no broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage or cauliflower. Gracias Moi Update: Obsession Corn seed just came in the mail from Park Seed.
Beets, carrots, swiss chard, turnips, kohlrabi, and potatoes. Might try some navy beans. No watermelon, or cantaloupe. They also have some cold tolerant tomatoes like black crim or some of the Russian varieties.
Swiss Chard? Do you know about "spinach leaf miners"? They look like a house fly. They lay eggs on the underside of swiss chard where they hatch and burrow into the leaf, producing off-color brownish patches. If you see those browning patches and destroyed leaves, check the underside of leaves closely for white eggs lined up in about 4 or 5 rows touching each other, each row being about a quarter inch long. The only way I know of stopping them is to put a screen cover over the crop, which I'm doing this year.
Pest's can be a problem with any vegetable. I have never had problems with chard. Sometimes timing can help get the crop going when the pest isn't present. I don't plant chard in the summer because of our Alabama heat. It does well in the fall. If I had problems year after year I would plant something else. That is why I don't plant cauliflower or brussle sprouts. They just don't do well here.
And I FINALLY have tomatoes, about the size of a small marble. I TOLD you you guys were too impatient!
I have tomatoes between yellow and red. Will.probably pick in the morning. My tomatoes aren't yielding like they should.
some of my tomatoes. It doesn't look like yield is going to be that great. But I have other plants of a different variety coming along also. They may get better over time...but no blossom end rot! I guess the eggshells and vinegar works.
Cool, now all you have to do is keep the cattle out. I had to move my goats. The corn was just too.much of a temptation.
Time to start garden produce preservation. Just put up some refrigerator pickles and one quart of pickled squash. We have to start making room for stuff that hasn't come in yet. I am thinking about trying some lactofermintation. We have some okra getting started, and sweet corn soon. Broccoli is just about done. We also have baby green beans, purple hull peas, crowders, and Christmas butter beans starting. Looks like its gonna be a good harvest.
Garlic. Hardly anything easier to grow until this year. Home Depot sells super garlic for growing and it looks like two ordinary garlic clumps in bag. It grows potent and many are loyal to it, although I have used sprouted kitchen garlic too. Well this year, my garlic which grew super and is now browning signalling time for harvest, only produced one garlic bulb. As if it was a small to medium onion. Anyone know why garlic would grow as one piece and not the usual. Today I picked two more totally brown and it was the same. I am going to let them dry and replant them while the remaining plants turning brown will be allowed to resprout and grow again. The browning is maturity, not lack of water or anything like that. The piece of ground was reliable for garlic. Ideas? BTW what tomato does the best where it rarely gets above 75F by the beach. My tomatoes just don't work The leaves die young. Same for other gardeners in my n'hood. Sometimes cherry and grape tomatoes work but, I'm looking to grow big ones too. Ideas? Moi Too cool here for Mission Figs but Peter's Honey Figs love it.
I am being overrun with Zuchinni. Does anybody have experience vacuum sealing these things. I am new to that and am not sure if I should coke them, blanch them, or if I can just chunk them in raw and freeze them til winter. Anybody know which is better?
We make zucchini bread and pickle some. I don't like to freeze it because it gets mushy. But zucchini bread dough freezes pretty well.
I have read a lot about fermentation but I just can't make myself do it....I would never eat it.....maybe for Thanksgiving when I have Guinea pigs I don't particularly care if they live or die to experiment upon.
When I was raising pigs I tried it because we always seemed to get our produce in spurts. I used a 30 gallon trash cans. It worked well and I had good tasting pigs.
When it comes to squash, I find that everybody wants some until you actually have some to give away, then crickets.
