The Outdoor Gardening Thread

[PeppermintPatty]

We lifted the first lot of potatoes yesterday. They're an early variety called Jazzy. There are two more lots to lift later this summer - Kestrel and Amanda.

That sounds exciting Capt Lightning
Do you have any pictures of them?

 

[PeppermintPatty]

Today’s harvest. With 31 tomato plants we’ll be getting loads of tomatoes daily. We plan on making tomato sauce, salsa sauce, and freezing a whole lot of them. If we purchase a dehydrator we can make tomato paste.

 

[Kadee]

You can oven Dry tomatoes, I’ve got to admit I’ve never done it ….i have a dryer for 30 years - but I’ve never had enough tomatoes to dry.

 

[Kadee]

Brand of my dryer , of course there’s much better dryers out there now days , even freeze drying which I’ve never bothered reading up on how they work.


This link gives you instructions for drying tomatoes ..which I might try myself if I get enough tomatoes in summer , it lots less time over drying than with a dryer .
@PeppermintPatty

Sun Dried Tomatoes (Easy, 3 Ways) - Wholesome Yum

 

[PeppermintPatty]

Brand of my dryer , of course there’s much better dryers out there now days , even freeze drying which I’ve never bothered reading up on how they work.


This link gives you instructions for drying tomatoes ..which I might try myself if I get enough tomatoes in summer , it lots less time over drying than with a dryer .
@PeppermintPatty

Sun Dried Tomatoes (Easy, 3 Ways) - Wholesome Yum

View attachment 443223

I’d love to dry some tomatoes, not just for making tomato paste but for making flakes for convenience. Thanks Kadee. I’ll check it out.

 

[PeppermintPatty]

Today we walked through the edge of the city again. It was a nice walk. We went a bit further this time. I got some nice photographs.
Some beautiful petunias.


A nice little park to take the dogs to.
A lighthouse display in front of someone’s house that caught my eye.
It was 21 degrees Celsius and sunny today. On the way back we got some buckets filled with water to water our plants.

 

[MoBeans]

My Koginut squash experiment is doing well. Without the bamboo trellis it would have filled the patio. A friend gave us the seeds. Koginut is a hybrid mix between Butternut squash and Kabocha squash. Roasting turns the insides to a sweet pudding while caramelizing the skin (which is edible). It takes 110 days to ripen to a rich bronze color. Another month to go.

 

[Medusa]

My BFF, who is into container gardening and very good at it, has been asking me for pictures of my plants and veggies. I finally took some quick snaps this afternoon and apparently managed to get my finger in almost every shot.

 

[Medusa]

The rest.

@PeppermintPatty, this is our blueberry bush. It started as a twig at the beginning of the season.



And this is our lemon tree, which has no business doing so well in our region. That's down to my husband's efforts.


The Spaghetti Squash the plant devoted its entire life to.

 

[PeppermintPatty]

@Medusa
I recognized the blueberry plants right away. It looks fabulous. You obviously got some soil that it prefers.
Is the second picture a spagetti squash?
The lemon tree looks really healthy, especially considering the gardening zone it’s been growing in. Is the last picture a butternut squash? It looks really healthy? Your husband has a green thumb for sure. He’s a natural gardener.

 

[Kadee]

There was a little sunshine out yesterday ,so I did a little preparation for spring planting of tomatoes
I’ve got another ripe capsicum on the plant down the side of the house where it’s a bit more protected from winds
and the plants still have some green leaves on them , I trimmed back a egg plant that had a flower in it ..strange surviving and flowering after such a cold winter
13 c today = 55f

 

[Kadee]

Here is my capsicums that have survived winter ….and still putting out what some may call sweet red peppers

and the egg plant that’s flowering and has not even lost its leaves over winter

 

[Medusa]

@Medusa
I recognized the blueberry plants right away. It looks fabulous. You obviously got some soil that it prefers.
Is the second picture a spagetti squash?
The lemon tree looks really healthy, especially considering the gardening zone it’s been growing in. Is the last picture a butternut squash? It looks really healthy? Your husband has a green thumb for sure. He’s a natural gardener.

Yes! My husband got some acidic soil or something to make the soil more acidic, for the Blueberry Bush.

The last picture is a Spaghetti Squash and the other squash is Yellow Neck.

Thank you for nice words! I'll share them with my husband.

This is a lovely thread you've created.

 

[PeppermintPatty]

Here is my capsicums that have survived winter ….and still putting out what some may call sweet red peppers

and the egg plant that’s flowering and has not even lost its leaves over winter

View attachment 443447View attachment 443448

Wow! They survived the winter. What growing zone are you in. What type of fruit do you grow again? Peaches and something else?
Did you see Medusa’s lemon tree?

 

[PeppermintPatty]

Yes! My husband got some acidic soil or something to make the soil more acidic, for the Blueberry Bush.

The last picture is a Spaghetti Squash and the other squash is Yellow Neck.

Thank you for nice words! I'll share them with my husband.

This is a lovely thread you've created.

The blueberry bush look incredibly healthy.
I thought the yellow squash was a spaghetti squash. Ive never heard of a yellow neck and I took another look at butternut squash and its shape is nothing like yours. Here’s butternut squash.

 

[PeppermintPatty]

We’ve picked about 60 pounds of tomatoes so far. Most are in the freezer but a large portion are being processed into tomato sauce and canned today.
We pick them before they all turn red and let them ripen through the sun room window.

We will be busy everyday with the garden until the end of autumn . We will let the tomatoes grow and then use the green tomatoes for chow chow. It’s quite exciting growing all our produce from seeds.

 

[PeppermintPatty]

Today my husband went to our garbage and recycling dump to get ‘aged’ compost. The compost is canadas best - out of 70 composts tested, it is Canadas best. It’s strictly made from wood chips, lobster , and crab. It has zero smell to it. My husband got just under a ton which was put into a tarped trailer.

 

[PeppermintPatty]

Here are our 37 tomato plants all grown from seed. Each day we pick tomatoes. So far we’ve picked approximately 50 pounds of tomatoes. 27 kilograms

This pepper plant super hybrid chilli pepper and it’s been grown from seed also. It’s currently got over 100 peppers on it.

 

[PeppermintPatty]

Getting ready to process tomato sauce.

 

[PeppermintPatty]

Tomato sauce made from the above tomatoes.

 

[Medusa]

Tomato sauce made from the above tomatoes.
View attachment 450801

Wow! Patty, that is awesome. We mostly just sliced our tomatoes for sandwiches, here and there. I did make a cucumber & tomato salad, once.

Are you putting up anything else?

 

[PeppermintPatty]

Wow! Patty, that is awesome. We mostly just sliced our tomatoes for sandwiches, here and there. I did make a cucumber & tomato salad, once.

Are you putting up anything else?

Thanks Medusa. We use freshly sliced tomatoes on sandwiches too but we are picking tomatoes from 37 tomato plants daily.
We are currently harvesting about 50 tomatoes a day which we believe will increase per day.

We have made cucumber relish and zuchinni relish . We recently bought an electric canner, which will save a bit of time in cannng.

 

[Kadee]

Great job @PeppermintPatty ….love it ….
all your work of planting / tending to your plants from a tiny seed has paid you back well ….We made tomato juice last summer it was delicious

 

[PeppermintPatty]

Great job @PeppermintPatty ….love it ….
all your work of planting / tending to your plants from a tiny seed has paid you back well ….We made tomato juice last summer it was delicious

Thanks Kadee. It’s hard to believe all this came from tiny little seeds. Life truly is miraculous!

 

[Kadee]

The blueberry bush look incredibly healthy.
I thought the yellow squash was a spaghetti squash. Ive never heard of a yellow neck and I took another look at butternut squash and its shape is nothing like yours. Here’s butternut squash.

View attachment 443523

We call them Butter pumpkins @PeppermintPatty …they are the same as I grow in a very small scale compared to your great veggie patch…..isn’t it nice to walk out the door and pick fresh foods you’ve grown yourself