Haven't posted here for a while. Between being busy, starting a new job and problems logging in, haven't gotten to it.
Part of being busy was canning. Wound up with around 30 quarts of green beans, around that many quarts of tomato products, 8 quarts of corn (aside from what was eaten or frozen) and a few jars of pumpkin. Made a few jars of pickles but those were from purchased cucumbers.
Of course, the garden is down for the year. Biggest success of the year was tomatoes. Biggest failure was cucumbers. Had lots of pumpkins. Biggest was about 80 lbs.
I started using a propane torch to burn weeds and grass in the garden. Not finished with it but kinda broke right now. Get back to it soon. Then treat heavily with sulfuric acid, till and repeat the acid. Think that should kill off some of the weeds and undesired grasses.
Started my annual collection of leaves for composting. Not quite as much available this year. People are throwing them away or just too far off to be worth driving after. Bummer. Ex gave me one bag. Collected 5 1/2 large garbage cans from the dance studio. The church behind me actually raked theirs up for the first time since I moved in. (Need to check their dumpster. Leaves may still be there in bags.) And I haven't had nearly as many since I cut so many trees this year. (The trees are still alive but bushes instead of tall trees.)
Corn and sunflower stalks made a good mulch, once they were shredded. All the tomato and pumpkin vines went into compost once they stopped producing. So did all the pumpkins which were not eaten or canned. Still have a few pie pumpkins left which I need to process.
I left some tomato roots in the ground. Since they're allegedly perennial they may come back in spring. I'll still start lots of seeds in January and if the roots don't come back, just till them under and transplant seedlings.
Saved lots of pumpkin and flower seeds. These pumpkins produced the fattest pumpkin seeds I've ever seen! Plus, the pumpkins themselves have a good flavor and texture for large pumpkins. So, all set for planting those next year.
The grass in the front yard eventually did grow thick enough to crowd out most of the weeds. Where I still had some weeds growing, I burned with the propane torch and will repeat that later.
Had lots of strawberry plants which did survive this year, though barely produced. Have them well marked and hoping they do better next year. Haven't had a true hard freeze yet, so need to dig up the roots and save them this week.
In all, this was a really good year for the garden. Maybe not by some standards but best I have had so far. Expecting next year to be much better.
Part of being busy was canning. Wound up with around 30 quarts of green beans, around that many quarts of tomato products, 8 quarts of corn (aside from what was eaten or frozen) and a few jars of pumpkin. Made a few jars of pickles but those were from purchased cucumbers.
Of course, the garden is down for the year. Biggest success of the year was tomatoes. Biggest failure was cucumbers. Had lots of pumpkins. Biggest was about 80 lbs.
I started using a propane torch to burn weeds and grass in the garden. Not finished with it but kinda broke right now. Get back to it soon. Then treat heavily with sulfuric acid, till and repeat the acid. Think that should kill off some of the weeds and undesired grasses.
Started my annual collection of leaves for composting. Not quite as much available this year. People are throwing them away or just too far off to be worth driving after. Bummer. Ex gave me one bag. Collected 5 1/2 large garbage cans from the dance studio. The church behind me actually raked theirs up for the first time since I moved in. (Need to check their dumpster. Leaves may still be there in bags.) And I haven't had nearly as many since I cut so many trees this year. (The trees are still alive but bushes instead of tall trees.)
Corn and sunflower stalks made a good mulch, once they were shredded. All the tomato and pumpkin vines went into compost once they stopped producing. So did all the pumpkins which were not eaten or canned. Still have a few pie pumpkins left which I need to process.
I left some tomato roots in the ground. Since they're allegedly perennial they may come back in spring. I'll still start lots of seeds in January and if the roots don't come back, just till them under and transplant seedlings.
Saved lots of pumpkin and flower seeds. These pumpkins produced the fattest pumpkin seeds I've ever seen! Plus, the pumpkins themselves have a good flavor and texture for large pumpkins. So, all set for planting those next year.
The grass in the front yard eventually did grow thick enough to crowd out most of the weeds. Where I still had some weeds growing, I burned with the propane torch and will repeat that later.
Had lots of strawberry plants which did survive this year, though barely produced. Have them well marked and hoping they do better next year. Haven't had a true hard freeze yet, so need to dig up the roots and save them this week.
In all, this was a really good year for the garden. Maybe not by some standards but best I have had so far. Expecting next year to be much better.
Posts
