Vegetable Garden Update August 08

Tina's Vegetable Garden Update:
We here at "In the Garden" enjoy posting about our vegetable gardens. Skeeter's vegetable garden is new, my mother also has a new one, Lola has one in Florida as well. I chose the 16th of the month because it is the day after GBBD and many bloggers participate in GBBD. (But! If too many bloggers are tired from GBBD posts, maybe another day would be better? The 20th Maybe?) In my mind I thought picking a certain day to post on veggies was a good idea, so that is what I have done for many months now. I post on many things but on these two days I know exactly what I will be posting about. Readers can always count on these two posts here on those two sacred days. I know many bloggers who do post about vegetables occasionally, and some all the time. Vegetables are great, especially with the price of all goods rising so fast, but not all gardeners grow vegetables or blog about them all the time. If you are a gardener who grows vegetables and posts on them (occasionally), why not pick a day and post about them? I'd like to read all of the vegetable posts. You see, I can't always visit all the blogs I love each and every day, so on the for sure days I know there is a special post up, I would truly endeavor to visit all blogs who post a GBBD on the 15th, and Vegetable Garden Update on the 20th. Thanks! And I hope to see some vegetable posts on the 20th! Dawn? Dave? Frances? Cindy? and anyone else who posts on vegetables! DP-you already do a great job with all of your vegetables-especially Barney! Gail? Marnie? Perennial Gardener? Garden Girl? And all of you great garden bloggers (too many to name) Do you have some veggies hidden somewhere you could post about on the 20th?

Now to our monthly updates on the Tennessee garden (Tina) and the Georgia garden (Skeeter)! The above vegetables are a few I recently harvested from the garden. The black bell pepper was a surprise. Apparently I purchased a special variety and had forgotten. All the bell peppers on the one plant I planted are black or turning black. Can you see it above the eggplant? I have three eggplants growing. This one will go great with some homemade spaghetti sauce. Skeeter, Do you know the type?
There is so much going on in the vegetable garden I can hardly walk in it anymore. The above picture is a long view looking southeast. Just a few short months ago there wasn't 'much to look at here. The orange cosmos have finally come into their own. You can see the dark cannas on the left of the cosmos, and the 15 foot tall banana tree in the center of the vegetable garden proper.

Can you say gourds? Because I did not have any gourds last year, I went overboard this year. I think there are about 6 vines growing. This is way too many! I will probably get about 50 gourds from them easy. I'll be painting and drying for days this winter. The above picture shows my A-frame, or should I say the vines covering the A-frame and growing into the lawn and all over other plants in the garden. I don't mind really, but the other plants do. I try to keep the vines contained by roughly pushing them back into their place. Their tendrils are so tenacious they grasp anything in their way, even grass, and hold on for dear life. That is where the rough comes into play. Don't worry, it doesn't hurt the vine a bit. Gourds are tough. They are growing vertically, horizontally and everywhere! This A-frame has far exceeded my expectations. The gourds are hanging beautifully and the vines have a place to grow.

Here are two of the fruitful fruits. Gourd vines are tough and I have found the fruit do not need to be held up. Actually, it is best to let them hang so they will grow straight. These ones will be very straight and big as they are 4+ feet off the ground and growing nicely. No gourds laying on the ground have ever rotted in my garden. I will not harvest these until the first frost kills the vine. They should be good and sturdy by then. I will post my drying method later. The eggplant are finally maturing. I noticed three are growing now. Finally! I still say it is not worth a gardeners time growing these vegetables to eat, but for fun-go ahead. Be prepared to battle bugs and receive a bit of disappointment. These guys are slow to start but doing well now. The flea beetles haven't slowed them down.

I have been picking: banana peppers (sweet, due to my great dislike for spicy foods because that is all the Army served us in Iraq!), the black bell peppers, green beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, and zucchini. The cabbage has all been harvested and eaten, but I noticed new cabbage plants are sprouting from where I left the last two stems from my cabbage in the garden. Cool, maybe they'll grow some more cabbage. The onions are still hanging out under the A-frame and most likely will not be harvested until next spring. We'll see. I will be planting some different types of lettuce and have already planted some Broccoli Raab in order to get a fall harvest. Now is the time to start planting some seeds for fall crops. Some to consider are: radishes, lettuce, carrots, broccoli, cauliflower and cabbage.

The only failure in the vegetable garden has been the rhubarb. Even though I have grown a clump for about four years I have decided to not bother with it anymore. I really loved growing it but its fickleness with the heat and humidity down here is just not worthy of space in my vegetable garden. It tends to fade and nothing I can do seems to help it out. So it came and straight into the compost pile. Oh well. Here's to all of you and your vegetable gardens!

P. Price of Red, White and Grew blog fame has asked bloggers to post about their vegetables and vegetable gardens. Her post can be found here. It is a very informative post and talks a lot about Victory Gardens. Who remembers Victory Gardens? I do. I began intensively growing vegetables because of it and Organic Gardening. Since fall is an excellent time to grow vegetables, it is also an ideal time to talk of vegetable gardens and share knowledge we have on growing vegetables. Why not post on the 16th? Please see P. Price's blog for more information about spreading the word of Victory Gardens and answering her questions on her blog for others. I will probably prepare a post of my own on Victory gardens, but wanted to answer one of her questions. She asked what I called my _______ garden? I don't consider my vegetable garden a Victory Garden per se, but then again, any success in the garden can be considered a victory. Growing your own vegetables does put you in a good position of providing for your family. This was one of the main goals of the government's program of encouraging private citizens to grow their own fruits and vegetables during World War II. Look for these posts on vegetable gardens and participate too if you grow vegetables. Thanks! I call my food for growing and eating garden a "Vegetable Garden", but Victory Garden would work just as well.

in the garden....

Skeeter's Vegetable Garden Update:

Water in the Rain Gauge is something we have not seen much of this summer or the past 3 years down here in Georgia! Happy to report with a few rainfalls, we have been able to gather a few crops from the garden. Look at the beautiful salad I made with our tomatoes, cucumbers, sweet and hot peppers! I added a few more fun things such as feta cheese, black olive and spinach leaves. It was yummy!

You can see a split on a tomato from too much watering. I must water in order to keep the ground from drying out in this drought but too much water was getting to the tomatoes. They tasted just fine though.

The Eggplant did not get as large as we had expected but one of them sure was yummy in a casserole! The other two will be put into a stir fry dish and served on rice by the time of this posting.

The Cucumbers continue to grow and in those funny shapes. Hey, look, we have one normal looking Cuke! They are tasting mighty good in Gurken Salat, a German salad. We are so grateful to have our German friends send us the seasoning packets for this cold summer treat!

We still have Eggplant growing so we will harvest more soon and try out another recipe.

Tons of baby gourds have died on me but these three look like they will become birdhouses some day! All three of them have tried to escape as the vine went over the fence. I have never grown gourds before so this has been a learning experience for me. They were slow to start from seed but once the vine started to grow, it has really gone wild! Hope deer and bunny do not like gourds since they are over the fencing...

The Roma tomatoes seem to be doing better than the Goliath. There are a lot of them starting to turn red and about ready for us to harvest.

The Zucchini and Crook neck Squash are not doing too well. I have only picked one crook neck and no zucchini as of yet. See how the baby zuck in the back looks so healthy and the one to the front is turning yellow? That is what is happening to all the squash, then they just dry up to nothing! Someone suggested removing the bloom as it could be blossom rot. So I have now removed several blooms to see what happens. Stay tuned to next month for results in this experiment!
I know it is not because the bees are not doing their job of pollinating. Just look at those two little busy bees working away inside the squash plant!

We added 3 new peppers last month. Banana, Sweet Red and another Sweet Green Bell. We have the first white blooms (left) on the Sweet Banana and a baby on the Red Pepper you see to the right. Hopefully I will have a picture of bright red and yellow peppers for you to see next month. I will cross my fingers for the green but he is not looking too good.

The Saint has been picking his Cowhorn and Jalapeno peppers as fast as he can! We only have a few of them on the vine. Once they are picked, I believe that will be the end to them. They really did not seem to mind a dry summer or the 75 straight days we had of above 90 degree temps.

The tomato plant we added last month is now blooming and hopefully will give us some juicy red maters.

We had a bit of success last month and considering this drought, we are happy with VEGETABLE GARDEN UPDATE AUGUST 08, In the Garden...

Tune in Sept. 20 for more!