New England, August 2016

Camprn......Thank you, too, for posting such great pix.  I sure do enjoy the gardens of this summer. 
Here its not in the 90s but with 88% humidity, it sure feels like it.

Here is my first, ripe juicy tomatoes that I picked with other things. I still need to go to the upper gardens and check them today. Good eats tonight!

bigdogrock wrote:Here is my first, ripe juicy tomatoes that I picked with other things. I still need to go to the upper gardens and check them today. Good eats tonight!

Look at all the cukes and beans! I'm having a really bad bean year so those look so yummy. Beautiful photo, Rock.

CapeCoddess wrote:Look at all the cukes and beans! I'm having a really bad bean year so those look so yummy. Beautiful photo, Rock.

Beautiful. So far this year, only 2 meals worth of beans.

Ditto!  Nice looking gardens!  Finally rained here, so maybe some relief coming your way....was miserable before however....

Rock, good eats for sure!  Summer...

sanderson wrote:

CapeCoddess wrote:Look at all the cukes and beans! I'm having a really bad bean year so those look so yummy. Beautiful photo, Rock.

 Beautiful.  So far this year, only 2 meals worth of beans.

Same here and mine look anemic. His are so fat!

I was out mowing today, and I saw a small natural flower spot. Not a garden I put in, but rather a pretty little spot tucked away, that gives you that "wow, that is pretty" feeling. The pic doesn't do it justice, you have to be there, but still the pic is OK for a picture. As I was walking to it with the camera, I noticed how my mint "field" was doing. I like to make mint jelly to put on ice cream and mix into chocolate shakes, as well as putting it on lamb. To give you some idea how big it is, my little lawn tractor has a 42" deck the path between the two patches is a deck and a half wide.
Don't know what the flowers are, but they grew on their own.


My mint gardens are becoming my mint fields.

Loosestrife, Black Eyed Susan, Queen Anne's Lace, and Goldenrod!  Lovely!  Nature's Palette.  Great design....Higher power

Wonderful islands of "flowers"

Picked this morning!

bigdogrock wrote:Picked this morning!

Nicely grown.

bigdogrock wrote:Picked this morning!

Beautiful, Rock!  It's a perfect little harvest for dinner: fresh, healthy, and colorful - tomato and cucumber salad, sauteed beans, and roasted squash!  Round it out with a char-grilled ribeye steak and I can think of no better meal....   I'm jealous! 


What kind of beans are you growing?

GB







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Thanks TD and GB!
Ginger, I am not sure of the purple beans, and I lost the info due to carelessness on my part, left the empty packages and notes out in the weather:( . But, I am pretty sure the green beans are Kentucky Wonders:D , I only buy Pole beans, so the purple ones are also pole beans.
I did get an old pack of bush beans that I planted, they did OK, but I am going to stick with the pole beans.

BigDog......Lookin' good!

Rock, purty!  I am a pole bean only person too.  Grew bush wax beans a couple times, but they just don't produce like pole varieties.  I love love love the purple ones I got from Baker Creek this year; Blauhilde.  A. Ma. Zing.  Practically stringless, gorgeous, easy to find, and delish.  

Nice haul!

bigdogrock wrote:Thanks TD and GB!
Ginger, I am not sure of the purple beans, and I lost the info due to carelessness on my part, left the empty packages and notes out in the weather:( . But, I am pretty sure the green beans are Kentucky Wonders:D , I only buy Pole beans, so the purple ones are also pole beans.
I did get an old pack of bush beans that I planted, they did OK, but I am going to stick with the pole beans.

Thanks Rock, good to know.  I intended to grow pole beans this year, but purchased bush bean seeds by accident.    Most of the beans failed to germinate and the few plants that survived are just now starting to produce pods - only a handful, so far. A disappointing turn out...   I'll be more careful and try pole beans next year.

Hey Ginger, I have always been able to grow Pole Beans, they just seem to do well for me. I have a system where I plant two rows about 2 inches apart with a seed spacing of about 4 inches. I stagger the rows so they have more room.

______x ______x______x______x______x______x______x

         ______x______x______x______x______x______x______x

(The X represents the seed, and I had to use the underline to make the diagram show the offset of the them, so just ignore the underline.)Then I put a string about six inches off the soil that goes between the two rows. Then I wait till the plants are about six inches high, then I build a trellis and I weave a string up and down so that each plant has a string to climb.
I usually get Kentucky Wonders, and I was given the Purple beans, but I don't think they are pole beans this year. I am getting a few purple beans though, it is probably because I was attacked by something that took out all the Pole beans and that was all I had. They are good, but my K Wonders out perform them. This year I have a trellis that is over nine feet tall. I use a ladder to pick.
Next year I might try an experiment, I am going to plant the Wonders and start a trellis to about two to three feet tall, then run string slightly angled up and then see how far it will grow, making a green bean tunnel, just for the fun of it. I think it would be fun to be able to walk under it and pick beans.
There is a pic of what I have done this summer on page one of this thread, it seems to work for me.
Hey Scorpio, I am interested in your purple beans, I will check out Butler Creek. Do you know if they are heirlooms or hybrids?
By the way, thank you everybody for giving your comments, it has really helped me this summer to pay attention to my gardens and they are really producing because I have not neglected them.
Rock

I plant my pole beans the same way Rock does except I use a cattle panel between the two rows of beans but my rows are about 4-6 inches apart.

Rock, you are having so much fun...and rain! And your harvests are proof of that.   Well done!

I've always had good luck with Kentucky Wonder pole beans also until this year. I planted them,  the bush beans and Scarlet runner beans in the same bed. It's a bed that wouldn't grow much of anything last year and seemed to have some kind of weird tomato disease running through it. So I planted mustard spinach all over it in early spring to try to alleviate that. I'm hoping the beans and mustard spinach will condition the MM and alleviate the problems. Sowed some daikon in that bed today for the final touche. We'll see what happens next year.

This is what I sowed today for fall:

Now if those lousy pill bugs would keep their little mouths off anything that sprouts I'll be in business...

Rock, I am sure they are heirloom, the name of the company is Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company!  Lol!  

http://www.rareseeds.com/blauhilde-bean/

bigdogrock wrote:I have a system where I plant two rows about 2 inches apart with a seed spacing of about 4 inches. I stagger the rows so they have more room.

Rows 2 inches apart? Can you show a photo of the lowest part of the beds?

bigdogrock wrote:Next year I might try an experiment, I am going to plant the Wonders and start a trellis to about two to three feet tall, then run string slightly angled up and then see how far it will grow, making a green bean tunnel, just for the fun of it. I think it would be fun to be able to walk under it and pick beans.

 Do you mean 2 feet apart?

Hey Sanderson, I looked to see if a pic would show it, but the combo of beets and leaves of the beans are just to thick to get a pic.
Another way of say it (without a pic or diagram) would be to say that I plant them in a zig-zag pattern. But, basically it is two rows, two inches (maybe sometimes 3-5 inches) apart, and the seeds are offset so that all the plants have a direct path to the trellis which is between the rows. Also, when I build the trellis I make sure each plant has its own string to climb up on the trellis.

______x ______x______x______x______x______x______x                   back row
_____________________trellis____________________________
        ______x______x______x______x______x______x______x            front row

Remember, I tend to crowd some plants together, but this seems to work for me.

Thanks.

Hey all! I have been busier than I care to complain about, but today I am stopping to smell the roses, ah, wait, cucumber blossoms. Yeah, and tomato blossoms too.
    I went through a gallon of chainsaw gas this weekend, I cut down two trees, an oak and a maple, and have stacked the rounds in the sun. Well over a cord just on the oak. A friend is going to come over soon and use his hydraulic splitter and take care of it for me! During the weekend of firewood, I took many breaks, spending much of the break time just sitting in my garden. I promised I would post some pics so I am using today to do that.
    On a short but sad note, I lost most of my yellow squash, they just started dying off. I don't understand this(yet, but I will), when I was gardening earlier in my life this never happened. I had two or three plants of Yellow squash and zucchini and I couldn't give it away fast enough and most of the time people didn't want anymore because they had so much. Now days, it dies. I see mustard greens in my very near future.
    I am glad I remember the happy things from long ago so easily, and don't have such an easy time recalling the annoying or bad things. If I learned anything this year is that I need to learn how to take better notes, I need to think about this and come up with a method that fits me. I can see me starting a thread on taking notes just to get your thoughts and advice, there has to be someone out there that is a champion note taker that has cool ideas and recommendations about this. I will save this for a less busier time.
    I am very happy again this year with my "growin'" green beans. I took these two pics this morning. The first shows them from about 15 feet away. In the lower right is a yard stick standing at the base of the beans. They are over 10 feet high, I have to use a ladder to pick! The second pic shows the beans, and I have plenty of them.


Next, and the pic doesn't do justice to how many Sungold tomatoes are "supremely" on the vine. But, they have done very well if not fantastic this year. Maybe it is because I play music to them so often when I am out there, they have been getting a lot of Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Nat King Cole, Michael Buble, and Kevin Spacey, along with Glenn Miller and other Big Bands this summer. Just sayin'.

The tomatoes are "tracking" right along, best crop I have had in years! I was a little concerned last night, it got down to 42 degrees last night in two of my gardens, that is scary.

My cucs are "cruzin' " too! I hope I have enough time to make some "quick pickles", they don't last like canning dill pickles, but they sure taste a WHOLE LOT BETTER! This is my small container cucs, that I have close to the house, I have a 4X8 that has an 8' row of just cucs. Many cucs and still many blossoms on the 8 foot row.

You hear about people complain about the "Dog Days of Summer", but this is the time of the year that I have been waiting for. Yeah, the heat is oppressive, and we need some rain. But, a wide brimmed hat, a cool drink, my comfy chair, the Red Sox (winning!) on the radio, and watching the dragonflies protect me from the dastardly mosquitoes is a real enjoyment and comfort. All the time I have spent making my garden look nice to me, gives me the payoff now. Yup, the good eats are fantastic, but there is a pleasure in just stopping and enjoying the downtime in my garden, this is one of the main reasons why I do this.
Rock

bdr......I'm lovin' your garden.  Thanks for the pix.