I’m finding they like acidic soil, they like being fed, and some like shallots are very fussy. Seems the whites and yellows grow best.
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I’ll try again. I start them from seeds late winter.
These are my long island cheese…
Maybe 8 of them on there…this vine is amazing. This thing would grow up and over the house if allowed.
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That’s a fine-looking squash
I’ll echo your own question, tho - what do you do with those very large varieties of squash?
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Time I have tried a 3 sisters garden, I planted the squash on the outside of the beans and corn. That way the squash could get enough light and it helped (a bit) to discourage critters from coming in.
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My kids pumpkin that he brought home died, so i planted this in its place…they really love pie so i’ll probably try processing them for pumpkin pies. Get some whip cream topping… just lay on the couch doing nothing ///eat a bunch of pies until we get sick 
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Thanks. The basil is Genovese, yes. The tomatoes are a bit of a mixed bag. I’m pretty good at making a map of what I plant out early in the season, but then things get busy and plants that die are replaced and after a few months it’s all just a guessing game. The paste tomatoes are Opalka. They’ve done well this year. I’ve had issues with blossom end rot on past tomatoes in the past and these ones have been clean so far. The cherries are Sun Gold and Sun Sugar. The corn is Incredible. @thecityman made is sound too good to pass up!
I feel your pain on the deer infestation. Groundhogs have been attacking me like a plague.
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I grew some basil, including Genovese and Long Leaf, they were about a foot tall when I planted them in the garden. But, it has been overtaken by weeds. I liked the Gen better, it has a nice spicy flavor, compared to the LL, which is a bit too minty tasting for me.
You and others have grown Opalka and have had it do well. I might have to try it next year.
Never heard of Incredible corn, I’ll have to check that out.
We picked about 10lb of half-runner beans today, along with about 3lb of pole beans. We didn’t even get to process them as we also had a bunch of cukes that needed canned. Just finished doing 14qt of sweet pickle spears. Wow… Guess we’ll do the beans tomorrow. Also have lots of peppers that are gonna need tended to.
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Since our sweet corn is getting close to being ready, my wife checked one of the Honey Select ears to see if it’s turned yellow yet, and if the kernels are past the blister stage. She said some of the silks are starting to get drier and darker, so it won’t be too much longer.
She brought one up to the house, and it was a light yellow, and the kernels were bigger and fuller. She ate part of it and gave me the ear to sample, and it is very sweet, very tasty, but not a lot of corn flavor. I know these super sweets won’t taste like an old fashioned variety, but maybe as it gets closer, it’ll develop some more corn flavor. She finished it off before I got another taste!
Kinda geeked about it, just hoping and praying the varmits leave it alone until we can pick it. I think most of the HS should be ripe in another week. The Silver Queen still has another couple weeks at least.
We did no real harvesting of anything today, think we’re kinda “canned out” after the last couple days of processing beans and cukes.
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Kinda reminds me of the saying “Hope is not a strategy.” May wanna net them or something these last 2 weeks.
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I was very surprised when I found a couple of eggplant people in my garden this year. I bet a lot of you didn’t even know they existed. Billy has more of a hipster/emo hairstyle going on and Peggy has something like a 50s updo.
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OK, here’s some corn porn for y’all. We picked about 70 ears of Honey Select super-sweet corn a few days ago. We ended up canning about 14qt of it. We have more on the stalks, but these were prob the bigger ears. Silver Queen should be ready by next week.
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Here’s some banana peppers we harvested this week. Had enough to can about 9 pints of pepper rings. Most were mild, but one plant produced some surprisingly hot versions.
The ones in the middle are Serrano, Bulgarian Carrot and Padron. The hot yellows are on the left.
I got to try the first ripe habanero, that was orange in color. I only have a couple plants, but they are finally producing. I got these from a local nursery, didn’t grow them from seed like most of my other peppers. I could actually eat the whole thing without it bothering me too much. It had a unique flavor, and was hot, but not nearly as hot as the Carrot. That pepper has some intense heat to it, but also has a good flavor to it. I’ll grow it again next year, really like it.
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Looks like the Banana peppers were prolific, where did you get seed?
Well, that’s an interesting story. Just about all the mild ones in the pic above came off of one plant that has just gone bonkers. But, the cup that the plant was in before it went in the ground said “Quadrato d’Asti Rosso”, which is a red bell pepper, and these obviously are not! I got the seeds from the guy in Ohio that I get most of my heirloom seeds.
So, either the wrong seed was in the packet, or I just mislabeled it. Easy to do I guess, being that I started over 50 peppers from seed back in April.
The hotter bananas I mention above, I thought were mild when I planted them, but are not either. So, someone mixed some seeds for hot ones in that packet. I guess stuff like that will happen. Those seeds I bought at Rural King, I believe.
I have had some monster pepper plants this year. One Serrano looks like a big bush, and this banana is just as big, over 3ft tall.
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We canned another 16 pints of dill spears yesterday. Our cuke plants are still pumping out fruit, even tho they’re about played out. This will prob be our last batch of pickles for the year.
This batch was spears, made with a spicy brine with hot red pepper flakes and some cayenne pepper. Plus I added some slivers of Serrano, Jalapeño, Padron, and Hun Carrot to each jar. So, they might be too hot but I wanted some hot pickles to try.
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My wife planted some Early Sweet Sugar Pie pumpkin seeds a couple months ago, in some rather fertile soil by the barn that the horse had frequented years ago. Well, the vines are going everywhere, and we have at least half a dozen little pumpkins, one of them about 6in wide. The deer have pretty much left them alone so far. So, hopefully we’ll be have lots of pumpkin pies this fall!
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Sounds like a perfect spot for pumpkins/squash.
Here at least, the deer need to be near starving before they will eat squash plants (not necessarily so the fruit once they learn how to break the skin). Back when my garden fence was smaller, I would train the squash vines to grow thru the fence and outside. The only times those squash got eaten back was during very severe drought years when there was nothing green outside the garden. If you’ve ever walked in shorts thru a pumpkin patch, you will quickly see why the deer don’t want to eat the plants.
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Thanks, that’s encouraging to hear. There has been some minor damage to the plants, but, yeah, those leaves and vines are awfully prickly. Plus it’s kinda weedy around them, so that might help conceal them from the deer.
We picked almost all of what was left of the Honey Select corn today, about three dozen Silver Queen ears, and some Iochief as well. We ended up canning 7qt today. We should have a good number of SQ left after this.
