2nd picking of peas and pea pods. as contrasted to last year's pea garden the chipmunks haven't damaged a single pod or pea that i could tell. i made sure to get as many of the pods as i could find so there would be nothing to attract the chipmunks again. any remaining flowers that make it to pod and pea stage will be for seed supply. i'm hoping i can get every plant isolated when picking to keep the seeds separate as i would like to plant a patch from each plant next year.
green onions were great this year and i'm happy with the variety i planted last year. now i have thousands of seeds and have replenished the seed library so that others can grow them. i need to plant some more seeds now. they lived through our winter without any mulching at all.
garlic got lifted today. i didn't plant a huge crop so it was not that much to get it out and cleaned up and ready for drying and curing.
in the past i've used the hose to rinse the dirt off the roots and bulbs before letting them dry, but this year i decided to cut the roots off and then use a soft enough scrub brush and that worked out ok. trimmed off the dead leaves and will let the rest of them dry before trimming again.
beans were also picked and as usual they're delicious.
our beets are ready to to harvest. should have did them last weekend, will this weekend. first year growing them successfully. ate a few this week, next weekend am going to plant several varieties for a fall harvest looking for the right level of sweetness for us. most of our harvests will get pressure canned.
last night pruned and tied the cucumbers to the trellises. first year growing them. am trying to control the direction the zucchini is growing also, it'll invade my bell peppers if left on its own. those plants grow fast lol.
this spring i planted 1 year asparagus crowns in half whisky barrels. 2 barrels, 3 crowns per barrel. they grew a single fern rather quickly. however the stalks are very thin as are the fern leaves, like needles they are. i was wondering how much photosynthesis was actually happening if there was any at all. now they're beginning to send up stalks, although thin but much thicker than the first ones, it appears we may have a few weeks of asparagus to harvest next spring. am also going to add two more barrels with three crowns each next year.
peppers are taking off now that's it nice a warm out. i've got california bell, ozark bell, mini bell, scotch bonnet, some mixed super hots mystery peppers from a free seed packet, and a few carolina reaper plants. most of the plants are flowering and beginning to set fruit.
i have a few varieties of tomatoes growing this year. last year was an abysmal failure because to satisfy my wife's desire to grow corn i screwed up and planted it just south of all the tomato plants, blocking most of the sun. the corn came out terrible. i was told planting three different varieties in my relatively small space would lead to cross pollination. the sweet corn wasn't sweet and the gem corn wasn't colorful. must have been cross pollination. the tomatoes didn't produce much at all. this year am growing them up strings and am diligently pruning the suckers. have jujubee cherry tomatoes, bumblebee cherry tomatoes, cherokee purple, and box willie plants growing. most are 5-6 feet high and all are blooming, setting, and growing plenty of tomatoes.
my garlic is curing in my basement. it's hardneck. i pulled them up, cleaned the soil off with a soft brush brushing it out of the roots too, and have them laid out on wire shelving in the basement of my air conditioned house with an oscillating fan blowing on them. i did not cut the roots or stalks off. this worked last year, i see no reason to not do the same this year.
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