Will and I went out to the Wolf Garden yesterday evening to check the watermelons. We picked more of those, and yes, more Sweet Granite muskmelons, and some tomatoes to seed out. As we checked things, Will picked 12 more muskmelons that were very ripe. Then we found a nice big Leelanau Sweetglo watermelon that was ripe. The nearest curly tendril has dried up, and the bottom spot is now yellow instead of white, both signs of ripeness. Yea!
But when I went over to pick some tomatoes, I was shocked. In just a couple of days, we’ve got ripe tomatoes everywhere! Where I had planned on just picking a couple of varieties to seed out, I have to change my plans. It’s time to begin canning tomato recipes very soon! I could go out right now and pick a bushel full. Seriously! And boy are the tomatoes (and squash, watermelons, and muskmelons) big this year too. They liked all that manure, I guess. I have pound and a half Mia’s Italian paste tomatoes that double as a slicer for our BLTs and don’t ask about our Bill Beans. Some will easily weigh 3 pounds when ripe.
We’ve started letting Sarge, our English Mastiff, who’s almost 3 years old and still a pup, out in the fenced front yard to play with Gypsy, our Dutch Shepherd rescue, who loves to play rough. They make us laugh every time they are out there. Zoomies, wrestling, and playing catch wears both of them out after half an hour or so. They lie down and then play some more! Good exercise for them both.
I also went down to check the Gete Okosomin squash in the Main Garden. Nice, big, orange squash there! And, driving down through the plum orchard, I was astounded at the hugely abundant harvest of plums hanging there, ripening slowly but surely. I know one old lady who is going to be very busy in the near future! Likewise, the apples scare me. The poor trees are loaded and bending down with the weight.
Unfortunately, our potato crop this year is a dismal failure. They got overtaken by pigweed and the plants are struggling to be even visible. Luckily, I canned up a bunch. Oh well, in gardening, we always get crop failures each year; we’re not perfect, just like everyone else. — Jackie
The few potatoes I planted did well, sweet potatoes are in mineral tubs and will be ready to dig in a couple weeks. I’m getting a few more green & wax beans since we had a couple weeks of fall, now we’re back to pushing 100. Summer squash did great, winter squash didn’t. Question about dry beans…even though some leaves & stems are still green, many pods are dry & leathery. Should I pick them and dry indoors or leave them awhile yet? We do have very high humidity & I’m concerned they might get moldy.
We’ve canned 50 quarts of tomatoes and I’ve started taking tomatoes to the local food pantry. I’ve done one 10 gallons crock of sauerkraut. I still have 20 feet of potatoes to dig. Just standing still in the garden I’m dripping with sweat. It seems warmer than usual. I went to the grocery store (10 miles away) to get canning salt and I was stunned by the diminished inventory and prices. What special items (canned) with tomatoes do you like to make ? Ketchup? We made that a few years ago. My squash-butternut-didn’t produce much . Usually I get an abundance of butternut. Every year is different.
We did quite well with potatoes this year, I was diligent about the potato beetles, which decimated our crop last year. We’d gone three or four years without any beetles, I suppose they were bound to find our garden sooner or later, and I was asleep at the wheel in 2025 and wasn’t expecting them. Oh well, live and learn.
For years I’d plant new stuff just to try it out for the sake of experimenting, but now I’m paring all that back to the things that we actually like to eat. No point in giving pantry space to some nifty canned goods that we simply don’t eat much of.
I’m also cutting back on the things that are fiddly or annoying. We have some bush green beans that produce like champs every year, but as much as I like wax beans, I’ve found that they go from too immature to overripe in about ten minutes, and if I don’t get out to the garden RIGHT NOW they’ll be all tough. Okay, I exaggerate, but not by much. I’ve decided to give up on the wax beans and stick to the nice green ones that give me a little leeway.
On the plus side, this opens up garden space for things like amaranth and extra mangles that I can store for the animals over the winter and reduce feed costs, so it’s a win-win.