We are totally amazed at how productive our garden is this year. We’ve been harvesting tomatoes for over a month now, and the BIG Bill Beans are just now getting ripe. Some weigh more than 3 pounds and are not cracked or scarred. And the pumpkins and squash! Wow. Our new-to-us San Filipe pumpkins (an old south-of-the border pumpkin) is outdoing itself. Not only are they very productive, setting lots and lots of nice orange pumpkins, but they’re big, too! One cool thing about them is that they start out yellow (not green like most pumpkins) and slowly ripen to a nice orange.
Our onions were big; carrots huge, and the flour corn varieties amazing. Maybe it was the hot weather this summer, coupled with good watering from our spring basin. Of course “Mo’ poo poo” helps everything!
Will is out spreading lime on our fields today. He got a semi-load from a cement plant in Superior, Wisconsin, where it’s a by-product. And it was cheap; we only have to pay hauling (fuel) cost. As our soil is fairly acidic, that lime will help raise the pH so our pasture, hay, and garden crops will do much better. As it’s supposed to rain tonight, he wants to get it spread so it’ll wash down into the soil instead of clinging to the clover and grass.
I’ve been seeing migrations of wooly bear caterpillars so I figure we’ve got about four more weeks of Fall, then it’ll get cold. I’m SO not ready for winter. Well, we are ready, but I am not looking forward to snow. — Jackie
Rick Riley,
Wow! I’m so glad you’re sharing your bounty of Bill Beans with neighbors. And I’m glad they produced so well for you too. I sure love them, especially for BLTs! Now I’m hungry. Maybe we’ll have some for dinner. I will show you what the Giant Apache squash look like. Won’t be long now…
Sheryl,
Yes, we definitely will be adding San Felipe pumpkins to our seed listing. They’re SO productive and beautiful. Early too!
Tony,
Thanks for the update on your friend’s Bill Beans. They truly ARE a fantastic tomato. We’ve probably harvested five bushels so far from our plants and there are still many big tomatoes ripening out there!
gen,
Woolly Bears turn into Isabella Tiger Moths. I’m eating so many tomatoes while I pull out the seeds that I’m about a tomato-vore! But they’re SO good!
Miss Jackie,
Those Bill Bean tomatoes are surely impressive. I believe I had 12 plants ….and 9 cherokee purple plants and more tomatoes including pineapple…..We canned 50 quarts of the Bill Beans and the cherokee purple tomatoes and used the pineapple tomatoes for slicing and gifts to friends and neighbors….But I gave away 5 five gallon buckets of the Bill Bean tomatoes to friends whose gardens are just so so and who like to can tomatoes and a couple more such buckets of the cherokees Wow thanks for selling your favorite seeds!!!! that corn which makes several stalks and several ears sounds like one I need to purchase seed for as well….Please post photos of that Apache squash when harvested!!!! Rick
That San Filipe pumpkin looks beautiful. Sure hope you are going to add the seeds to your collection. I am so glad your garden has done so well this year.
A good friend and neighbor purchased your Bill Bean seeds and started all his plants indoors and put them out early in water walls. He was harvesting the Bill Bean Tomatoes two weeks before the 4th of July the date that all the N.Ky tomato lovers shoot for. He was so good to share the with us all summer. They were the best tasting tomato with few seeds and all over 2lbs. Thanks to you for making the seeds available and to our friend Karl for sharing. Keep up the good work, you and Will are my heroes .
Beavers & now wooly bear caterpillars? Are they moths or butterflies? That tomato looks so good, I’m almost sure my computer has developed smell-o-vision; congrats, it’s nice to see how well this years garden has produced for you. I hope you, Will, and the critters are doing well.
My garden has been unusually productive this year, too. Especially the pumpkins, although the sunflowers are starting to catch up.
I didn’t plant much in the line of squash this year because of how buried we were when I planted too much last year. So this year I only planted enough for my pumpkin breeding project. Of the 6 that I planted, 4 got eaten by something, so I only had 2 vines. I know from past experience that with 2 pumpkin plants, I can expect 3-5 pumpkins total due to pollination issues. (The more plants there are, the better each plant produces, at least in my garden.)
I got 16 pumpkins! 8 from each plant.
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