2023 garden season

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We're in dire straights here with no rain in the last 2 weeks. Lost close to 200 dozen sweet corn and even with drip lines running the peppers can't take the 90± degrees and hot sun. I probably tossed a couple of bushel the last 2 times picking. Guessers say maybe showers tomorrow but till I'm out getting wet I won't believe it. Only good thing is the Indian corn is starting to dry down.
 
It looks like my tomatoe season is coming to its end. I had planted them in a bed along the lenght of my back porch and they had grown so tall they where hanging above the railing by about 6-8 feet. So much that they where leaning over my steps onto the porch. I went outside and noticed they where gone. My wife decide she had enough and cut them down. but she picked all the green ones and made pickled maters out of them, so not a total loss. These where the Pink Hearts, My Morgage lifters havent produced much and my Big Zacs seem to be just getting started. I think next year I will plant the pink hearts on the other end of the porch where the railing is much higher
 
You should never let a tomato plant get that big because the longer the vines are, the more nutrients they suck from the fruit. When we grow tomatoes, the plants get aggressively pruned regularly and the tomatoes are much larger. I like breaded and fried green tomatoes myself.

I gave up growing a garden, except for potatoes. Very easy to get everything else here from the local truck farmers, most times free for the asking.
 
Mine just grow wild! Havent planted tomatoes for 3 years cept this year and have them growing all over the garden on their own. Cultivate out as many as I can but they finally take over. We pick tons of them and take them to the food bank. Nice tomatoes BUT we can only use so many of them.
 
We're in dire straights here with no rain in the last 2 weeks. Lost close to 200 dozen sweet corn and even with drip lines running the peppers can't take the 90± degrees and hot sun. I probably tossed a couple of bushel the last 2 times picking. Guessers say maybe showers tomorrow but till I'm out getting wet I won't believe it. Only good thing is the Indian corn is starting to dry down.
glad to see on another thread, another day u got rains FS. this hot sun is hard on plants. other than weeds! for example, 2 limas that were doing fine, did not get water one morning or covered back up. i have to tent them all! and they looked like they had withered, melted and died. only mostly an issue from 11 am to 1:30 or so. my bad! both in recovery, but all but bandaged up. i think they will survive, but they definitely not on fast track! not even worth it, imo... having to tend to them so much. 3/4 waterings a day! not as tasty, but a $1.00 bag in store frozen dept a lot easier... hmmm 🤔
 
You should never let a tomato plant get that big because the longer the vines are, the more nutrients they suck from the fruit. When we grow tomatoes, the plants get aggressively pruned regularly and the tomatoes are much larger. I like breaded and fried green tomatoes myself.

I gave up growing a garden, except for potatoes. Very easy to get everything else here from the local truck farmers, most times free for the asking.
how tall do u let them grow? when u prune them do u remove the suckers or/and also cut back the vines?

just today, i was looking over my shoulder... and remembering when my entire back yard was a garden! now it is much smaller, the garden. i prob will do tomatoes, some, Better Boy, Champion, Solar Fire til day i stop doing a garden. i did stop doing potatoes. but i do like them garden fresh. red la sodas do well here. too much hard work. lol. we cook the green tomatoes, too. very tasty, fresh cooked and warm out of the fry pan.

we did K-bobs for dinner tonite. no garden fresh tomatoes. usually, i dont care for the story bot. but i had one, so cut it up. not bad grilled! 👍
 
I have never had tomatoes grow that tall before, but this is the first year growing the Pink Hearts and the Big Zac's. As for growing and pruning, My wife's family grew tomatoes for market all her life. She has way more experience than me when it comes to pruning and trimming so I leave the maters to her. I actually get in trouble every year for trying to get her to stop pruning so much. She trys for the big maters more so than the numbers of maters.
 
We're in dire straights here with no rain in the last 2 weeks. Lost close to 200 dozen sweet corn and even with drip lines running the peppers can't take the 90± degrees and hot sun. I probably tossed a couple of bushel the last 2 times picking. Guessers say maybe showers tomorrow but till I'm out getting wet I won't believe it. Only good thing is the Indian corn is starting to dry down.
We did get some rain finally Thursday afternoon. It came at a price though with some high winds that blew over some of the surviving sweet corn and some of the Indian corn that had the extra larges ears on it. Looks like the high heat has gone too so that helps. The cole crops look pretty good due to running the drip lines.
 
It looks like my tomatoe season is coming to its end. I had planted them in a bed along the lenght of my back porch and they had grown so tall they where hanging above the railing by about 6-8 feet. So much that they where leaning over my steps onto the porch. I went outside and noticed they where gone. My wife decide she had enough and cut them down. but she picked all the green ones and made pickled maters out of them, so not a total loss. These where the Pink Hearts, My Morgage lifters havent produced much and my Big Zacs seem to be just getting started. I think next year I will plant the pink hearts on the other end of the porch where the railing is much higher
I started Mortgage Lifters for the first time this year. Planted a couple, gave the rest to friends. Mine grew fairly well, but my friends had mixed results. I've been trying a couple different varieties every season, doing Siberian and Box Car Willie's next year along with my other go-to's.
 
I started Mortgage Lifters for the first time this year. Planted a couple, gave the rest to friends. Mine grew fairly well, but my friends had mixed results. I've been trying a couple different varieties every season, doing Siberian and Box Car Willie's next year along with my other go-to's.
I ordered a flat of mortgage lifters from my usual greenhouse guy. Pretty reputable place. They grow over a million transplants per season. Thought I'd get a jump on some early tomatoes to eat so I planted one in a big pot in my greenhouse. I think either the guy got the wrong seed or tagged the flats wrong. They only got as big as golf balls. I gave some plants to my one buddy and the same results. I'll let my guy know next spring when I order my pepper plants. I'm sure he'll make it right. I was all ready for some juicy mortgage lifter sammiches.
 
Used my sweet corn planter to plant these as an experiment. 4 rows about 600 feet long
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sun has been so hot... and hard on my lima patch. all are covered. and i have to aim in the waterings so as to get inside to all w/o removing sun protection. a white sheet, etc. and my potted nursey doing well, too. couple of covered limas didn't like being exposed for a few hot hours. suffered, but showing improvement. expect them to be producing plants. sugar snaps to go in soon. well, once i relocate some weeds!

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Sweet potatoes were a hit this year, I went in with two neighbors using their ditch to plant a 70 foot long single row. We let them go over 120 days before harvesting, I ended up with some the size and shape of gourds! 5+lb'ers! All in all we ended up pulling about 100lbs out of the ground. The nice thing is they will stay edible and viable to plant for about a year. The biggest surprise this year have been the chinese long beans. They grow very fast from seed to fruiting vines then back to dried seeds, so fast that I am on the 3rd planting since july. Every two or three days I pick about a dozen beans..Its at the point that we are tired of eating green beans so the neighbors getting gifted them. I'm looking forward to shifting to carrots, radishes, lettuce, collards, spinach and i'm going to try growing Daikon this winter.
 
WAY too early to dig sweet potatoes here! Only planted 1 row 130 feet long,---- hard to get rid of them so I quit planting so many.

Still running 2 freeze dryers trying to get all the onions that we kept from the July harvest. They wont keep unless you process them and we have a few in the deep freeze and they are o.k. but prefer freeze dried better.
Still wanted to do a few beets and carrots but may not get it done. Depends on the weather.
Later we will do more mashed potatoes ready to eat and freeze dried. Same with beets. The dried stuff can be used as a dry snack or cooked in soup or by itself.
Did one 5 tray batch of apples to munch on during the winter.
Later on after harvest is over and outside work comes to a halt due to ground freezing,--its cook----eat----and get fat time!!! LOL!!
 
I agree sweet potatoes are a tough one to get rid of! thats why this year we used the ditch instead of our gardens like we did last year. I figured out last year that fertilizing them with any nitrogen after two vines are formed resulted in mostly vines. This year I told both neighbors I would handle the fertilizer. One neighbor listened and on his shorter section we got 50% more potatoes that were larger with 1/3 less vine mass to clean up. For some reason this year the moths and their worms are much worse than last year. My Bell peppers are starting to grow and get bigger now finally.
 

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