I’ve never had a problem with possums and coons in melons and pumpkins. Deer on the other hand will eat both with gusto.
Plenty.
Is that just the fruit or the entire plant?
I think possums and coons prefer the fruits.
I dug a few new potatoes today. When the plant blossoms, that is a sign there are small potatoes under it. I have about a dozen Sarpo Mira plants which are blooming freely. The potatoes were from 1 to 2.5 inches long which is just about perfect for new potatoes. I’ve had fresh radishes for 2 weeks. They are growing so fast that they won’t be edible in another week.
The garden dried out this evening just enough to set out a row of tomatoes and peppers. I have one more row laid out and will try to get them planted tomorrow. Rain is forecast in the afternoon so I’ll have to work between about 11:00 a.m. and 2:00 p.m. I also have 4 trays of Silver King corn plants to set out. Rows are laid out but will need to be fertilized and tilled.
I am now up to 7 rows of tomatoes and peppers planted with about 78 plants in each row. I planted the two rows of Silver King corn and also put in another row of beans, particularly a few sections of dry beans.
I have the following:
1 row of peas and potatoes grown from seed
1 row of potatoes
7 rows of tomatoes and peppers (grown this way to limit cross-polllination of the peppers)
1 row of brassicas (cabbage, cauliflower, brussels sprouts, and broccoli)
1 row of carrots, radishes, turnips, and peanuts
2 rows of Buhl sweet corn with peanuts at the far end
2 rows of beans of various varieties and species
1 row of curcurbits with space at the end for a few hills of sweet potatoes (watermelon, squash, melon, pumpkin)
1 row of okra with a 20 foot section of cotton (few know that okra and cotton are first cousins)
1 row of cowpeas
2 rows of Silver King sweet corn ( I love the flavor!)
I am going to put in one more row of tomatoes and peppers tomorrow if the weather cooperates.I got the area tilled today so most of the prep work is done. There is room to add 2 more rows if I choose. I’m debating, there is already enough to keep me busy 2 hours a day every day for the next 5 months.
I’ve harvested a few new potatoes, some radishes, and some turnip greens. I should have ripe tomatoes in 4 or 5 weeks.
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So Fusion, when you end up with BUSHELS of produce, what do you plan to do with it all?
Some will be canned, some frozen, some eaten, much given away. Most of the things I grow are to produce seed. For example, I produce Ledmon watermelons and Romanian Green melons for seed. I eat the fruit, save the seed, and hopefully don’t die from over-eating.
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Today was the first day fixing a meal from the garden. We had fresh boiled potatoes, turnip greens with a few turnips peeled and cooked in, fresh broccoli (deliciously tender!), fresh coleslaw, and some cowpeas (from the freezer) with cornbread. We also had poke salad from volunteer plants growing among the potatoes. When grown from seed, pokeweed has much less phytolaccin which basically means less effort required to make it edible. We still boiled and rinsed 3 times. Tomatoes are about an inch diameter which means the early varieties will start to ripen in 3 weeks or a bit less.
last year’s dried hibiscus and frozen peaches made with tea into some sweet fruit tea for the next few days of work outside.
Every year I buy at least some of the tomato vines for my garden from Walmart. This year I bought 12 (6 to a tray) vines on about the 15th of April knowing that I could keep them under a grow light until the garden was ready. While keeping them under the light I noticed that I had a single bloom on one vine! I remember thinking that one tomato bloom was strange and would just fall off.
Well, May 3rd rolls around, and garden has been chiseled and tillered. The tomato vines are getting a little leggy, so I decide to transplant. Here is the 2 and 1/4" tomato that came from that single bloom today! I’m not quite understanding how that single bloom got pollinated. There are no tomatoes on any of the rest of the vines, just blooms.
I don’t understand this!
Domestic tomatoes are self-pollinating. Just bumping or vibrating a bloom a bit can cause enough pollen to drop on the pistil to produce seed. Also, many tomato varieties today are partially parthenocarpic. If the flower does not get pollinated, it still produces seedless fruit.
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