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View Full Version : An update on our gardening and canning



phylm
05-22-2009, 08:07 PM
Just checked the wild blackberries here today, and picked a handful of nice ones. We have been having a lot of rain for the past week or so, so they are filling out nicely. Wondering how we are going to pick gallons of them with our green beans now coming on like gangbusters.

Finished the small row of snow peas, froze enough for all my stirfries for the year, and saved seed for the next planting. Just pulled up the last of our two 70 ft. rows of green peas. Managed to freeze lots of them, along with nearly 60 quarts of chopped broccoli and brocoli florets--from eleven plants. My husband wants to feed those plants to the chickens, but I froze 3 quarts of florets today. They just keep coming and coming. He planted three 70 ft. rows of Virginia peanuts today. We had very good luck with the Spanish peanuts last year, and I've made some peanut butter.

We have pulled all 640 Vidalia onions, and have dried two gallons of minced onion, have a couple of bushels ready to go into cold storage, and many more to still give away. We took a bunch of them, along with other vegetables down to the temple last Tuesday, and set them in the dining room, with shopping bags, for other ordinance workers to take home. Going to pull the spinach and lettuce tomorrow. Can't keep up with the summer squash and zucchini. We take bags of vegetables to friends and the families we Home/Visit teach.

Have canned 15 pints of green beans so far, but will do 80 or 90 pints. We still have a lot of dehydrated vegetables left from last year. Merl planted two rows of green beans out here for a couple of young mothers in our ward today. (They are in my prep class.) I'll help them get started canning vegetables, and will teach them to can meat. We have been taking advantage of lower meat prices lately, and have canned 30 pints of boneless pork, 10 pints of hamburg, 7 quarts of chicken, and 20 quarts of beef stew in the past week or so. Will do some more hamburg and chicken. A 10 lb. bag of legs and thighs was $5.00 at WalMart Super Center last week.

My husband sent a lot of vegetables with our cousin-in-law today up to a committed survivalist friend (non-member). He and his wife are living off the grid, and have been doing well, but the record flood of a nearby river this month drowned all of his garden. They'll be able to replant, but this will give them a start on their canning.

Planted three grape plants from Stark's a month ago. Two are seedless Concords...and there are eight bunches of grapes forming on one of them.

Hubby picked the first ripe tomato today, so will be overwhelmed with them soon. Have to admit that it is a good problem, though. I wish all of you the best of luck with your gardens this year. I think we're going to need them

prairiemom
05-22-2009, 10:21 PM
:worshippy:

Wow! Very cool! :thumbup1:
We had frost Sun and Mon, so I just started planting yesterday. You've got quite a start.

signseeker
05-23-2009, 08:10 AM
We're just planting this week, too.

DH wants to try out some of those upside-down tomatoes. (Rigging his own, not buying from the store.)

Won't have the harvesting to report for some time...

Great job, phylm! :coool:

phylm
05-23-2009, 07:56 PM
My cousin gave us an upside planter last year, and we raised one tomato in it. Have planted twice this year and gave up. The wind broke off the first one before it was a foot long, and then the second one which had two-inch tomatoes on it. Going to let our tomatoes grow upright from now on!!

Highlandsunrise
05-23-2009, 10:09 PM
We planted an upside down tomato last year. It got neglected and buggy and had blossom end rot. We are planting the tomatoes this year with a soaker hose under the black plastic. The heat from the plastic is supposed to help them grow bigger and produce more. We'll see.

The square foot garden: We have taken the weed mat out from under the boxes and tilled under them and replaced boxes and soil. That has kept us busy. The weed mat did keep the perrenial weeds and grass from growing through but the boxes needed to be watered every day with such shallow roots in our dry Summer heat (Utah).

In a more humid climate I'll bet the upside down tomatoes would do better too.

:l0 (29):May the Lord bless our gardens!!!!!

prairiemom
05-24-2009, 02:46 PM
A friend in our ward did the upside-down tomatoes in 5 gal buckets. They line the outside of her raised garden beds. Since she tore up part of the yard to put in the garden, she attached soaker hose to the sprinkler system and extended it to all the hanging tomatoes so everything gets watered even if no one is home. This year she planted herbs in the top of the bucket.

This is what it looked like last year:
http://i58.photobucket.com/albums/g275/prairie_chuck/Hangingtomatoplants.jpg

Highlandsunrise
05-24-2009, 03:12 PM
Wow!! That looks so neat and pretty. The watering system would solve the problem that we had.