[gardeners] Tuesday in the garden
George Shirley (gardeners@globalgarden.com)
Tue, 23 Jun 1998 20:31:16
Had to work until almost noon today at making eating money so couldn't get
into the garden until about 7 pm. Picked a bucket full of Yellow Pear,
Amish Paste, and Homestead tomatoes. Will freeze a good bit of them
tomorrow. Picked the last of the Cushaws too, squash borers finally got the
vine. The Cucuzzi are developing nicely but probably half the young gourds
drop off the vine rather than growing. Luckily they're prolific so there
will be enough.
Harvested another big batch of chiles today, got 'em dead ripe, crushed
them, and added them to my sauce crock with a couple of tablespoons of
pickling salt on top. The Longhorns are really productive this year with
the Casabellas a close second. The serranos are just hanging in there, the
Thai Hots are starting to turn red, the Hawaiian Tabascos are prolific and
ripen quickly. The Anchos are covered with young fruit so have a while
before harvesting those. The Charlestons and Turkish Hots are now producing
fruit so it won't be long.
The Golden Queen corn is ripening at the proper rate for the two of us,
about 4 ears every other day, had a batch yesterday along with BLT's on
homemade wheat bread and some green beans on the side.
Put up 8 pints of sweet pickle relish yesterday and forgot to add the green
food coloring. Got the prettiest golden relish with red specks in it you
ever saw. Has to be the 2 large red and 1 golden bells I added. Plenty of
onion, a few cloves of garlic, pickling spice, umm umm. Had some tonight on
a hamburger patty, right tasty. Miz Anne said she would prefer the relish a
little chunkier but since I used the food processor it was little chunks.
Tomorrow evening I will pull the cushaw vines, water the recently planted
Heatwave II tomato seeds and the newest little Louisiana Long Green eggplants.
The purple okra is really productive this year, I guess due to the drought
we're having, and started producing at 12-14 inches tall. It's about 2 feet
now and I'm harvesting 2 to 4 pods per plant per day. Gonna make some good
gumbo this winter.
Gotta bottle the purple basil vinegar sometime soon, it's a pretty medium
purple color. The nastursium blossom vinegar is a rosy golden color and
smells really good. Also time to put on more vinegars and make another
batch of pesto for the freezer. The thyme, oregano, tarragon, epazote, and
dill need cutting again. Reckon the dehydrator will run awhile this weekend.
Life is good.
George