2008 Low Carb GARDEN!!!!

[Chicklady]

Re: 2008 Low Carb GARDEN!!!!

But i haven't even harvested my first tomato

[SunnySmile501]

Re: 2008 Low Carb GARDEN!!!!

I've just started harvesting cucumbers and squash and I am now just starting to get the mid-season tomatoes (I've picked 4 so far). I have been getting Fourth of July tomatoes since the first of June, but they are a super early, 49 day tomato.

I don't have any tired, worn out plants but some of my mesclun--some of it, like the oak leaf lettuce, is still bearing strongly. I'm in zone 6, so our last frost date is May 19. I'm still harvesting Swiss chard nearly every day and my spinach is still going strong.

August and September are very hot and dry months here in central Virginia, so I will probably start some fall crops in late August. We don't usually get frost until the middle to late October. I am usually getting a few tomatoes, peppers and some fall berries well into November. Last year, I picked a ripe strawberry on December 2.

[Elsie150]

Re: 2008 Low Carb GARDEN!!!!

Need some expert advice. Last year and again this year we grew cabbage but bugs and rot got into them before they were ready to be picked. They were small heads. Is there anything that I can do so that next year it doesn't happen? I managed to save one but it is still very white in the center so I know they aren't quite ready yet....though I am unsure of how to tell when they are...LOL!

[Chicklady]

Re: 2008 Low Carb GARDEN!!!!

The bugs never eat my cabbage. The woodchuck won't leave them a nibble

[Elsie150]

Re: 2008 Low Carb GARDEN!!!!

I already have dogs, cats, fish, birds, a degu, a rabbit, 2 kids and a hubby...I don't want to get a woodchuck too....LOL!

[SunnySmile501]

Re: 2008 Low Carb GARDEN!!!!

My garden is growing very well, dispite the drought. I am getting very large yellow and red peppers with very thick walls--just the way I like them.

I've finally got tomatoes running out my ears, so I made homemade ketchup for the first time. It turned out really good. It was easy-peasy, so I will make more. It made the best seafood cocktail sauce I have ever tasted. I may make and bottle it as cocktail sauce for later.

Next on my list will be making chili sauce. Then I will be able to make my sauce for meatballs again. It called for a bottle of Heinz chili sauce and grape jelly. Smuckers is now making Concord grape jelly made with Splenda, so I can make these for the first time since starting Atkins.

I made fresh salsa for the first time ever and the recipe I used could use work. I used those "Salsa" tomatoes that I raised from seed from Burpee, but they are not juicy at all and have little taste. I won't be growing them again. I froze a small amount to see how it holds up to freezing.

The only problem I have this year is with hot peppers. They have been blooming like crazy all summer, but not putting on peppers. Some plants have had none and a couple of plants have had a couple small peppers. The plants are nice and big and look healthy. The sweet bell peppers are growing right beside them and they are doing fantastic. I fertilize them exactly the same. I make up a mix with sea weed emulsion, Miracle Grow, and Epsom salts and spray the plants every two weeks. This is the same mixture I have used for years to help set peppers and make the walls grow thick. I put bone meal, greensand and rock phosphate in each planting hole.

I planted my fall crop of mesclun, spinach and some herbs that don't like heat, but I didn't think to cover the containers with chicken wire and the Terrorist Squirrels and Chipmunks had a blast digging in all of them. I think the dratted little chipmunk can squeeze through the one-inch chicken wire. I also have a baby possum that has joined the band of Terrorist Rodents!

I found a crossbow arrow stuck in the ground near the tree where a family of squirrels live. It's against the law to shoot a crossbow inside the city limits, but I'm not going to say anything in case they are target practicing shooting squirrels. I did keep the arrow, which cost a fortune. They won't want to lose many.

Elsie--I don't know what to tell you about growing cabbage. I never had any luck growing cabbage, broccoli or Brussels sprouts due to groundhogs (woodchuck) eating them or the bugs taking over. I tried to use a high-pressure hose to wash off the eggs that the cabbage moth laid, but it never worked. If I ever have a big enough garden to raise them again, I might try using row cover cloth to enclose each plant so nothing can get to them.

As far as the cabbage being white in the center, that is how I like mine. I always choose a really firm head so it will be white in the center. I don't like the loosely formed heads that stay green most of the way through.

[Creek]

Re: 2008 Low Carb GARDEN!!!!

Sunny, about that hot pepper vine that looks so beautiful .. it sounds to me that the vine is putting all it's energy into vining and flowering, and I think to get the fruit started, you might have to stress it a bit by pruning back some of the vine. I had a similar situation this year with my pole beans. The vines were breathtaking, but not so many beans. I pruned it back and within five days, the beans appeared. I learned from growing Giant Atlantic Pumpkins that if there is too much vine to support, the fruit doesn't get the energy.

We had a happy accident with pruning this year. Cowboy Bob broke off a stem of our green pepper plant that had three small peppers. Within a week, the plant had started six more peppers.

I'll be canning my own chili sauce and tomato sauce by next weekend. Right now, I'm up to my eyeballs in red seedless grapes. I freeze some of them and send them to the grandkids, but I've got so many that I'm thinking about canning some grape juice for when the grandkids come to visit, or I'll try to can some fruit cocktail. The concord grapes are coming on and I'll be making jelly from those.

It's cooled off considerably this week. It won't be too long before the garden is resting.

[Elsie150]

Re: 2008 Low Carb GARDEN!!!!

Thanks Sunny. Care to share your Ketchup recipe?

[blueberrylady]

Re: 2008 Low Carb GARDEN!!!!

Sunny, Have you ever tried planting marigolds among your cabbage plants? They give off an odor that the moths don't like, so they stay away.

Our tomatoes are just starting to ripen now because it's been so cool here all summer. Even the blueberries and apples are slow ripening this year.

I don't do as much canning as I used to since I have to spend all my time here at the sales shed but I do manage to can blueberries and pickled beets, neither of which I can eat now because of the sugar in them but everyone else enjoys them.

[Chicklady]

Re: 2008 Low Carb GARDEN!!!!

My tomatoes are going crazy! So are my peppers. but they end up rotting before they ever turn red
Anyone ever freeze tomatoes?

[Elsie150]

Re: 2008 Low Carb GARDEN!!!!

Me. I have just cut them up and froze them. I didn't blanche them or anything. I use mine in chili. Haven't done anything with them other than that though.

[SunnySmile501]

Re: 2008 Low Carb GARDEN!!!!

Sorry, Guys, my Internet has been down since Aug. 12. Grrrrrr I hate Verizon. I'll get to your questions soon.

While my Internet was down, in between ordering parts and replacing them, talking to Dell and Verizon techs, I canned tomatoes and green beans, made lacto-fermented sauerkraut and kimchi, made another batch of ketchup, chili sauce, another huge batch of salsa for the freezer and made a from-scratch batch of "pasta" sauce with all the veggies from my garden.

Tonight I'm having pasta sauce with hot and mild Italian sausage over "zucchini" pasta noodles. Yum!

For what it is worth, nothing was wrong with my Ethernet card, cable, memory, DSL modem or my computer, all of which were replaced or upgraded at great expense to me...dumb Verizon techs!

[SunnySmile501]

Re: 2008 Low Carb GARDEN!!!!

Thanks Sunny. Care to share your Ketchup recipe?

Sure will. I'll have to type it up later--it's from the Ball Blue Book of canning and freezing. This is the freezer version, starting with raw tomatoes. I made another batch while my computer was down.

[SunnySmile501]

Re: 2008 Low Carb GARDEN!!!!

Sunny, Have you ever tried planting marigolds among your cabbage plants? They give off an odor that the moths don't like, so they stay away.

I tried all the companion planting recommended for cole crops, including marigolds and other nasty smelling plants, planted radishes among them, which is supposed to give them something else to eat, but nothing worked. I just decided to stop trying.

Next year, I might try a few again. Napa cabbage costs the earth, and I finally made kimchi and would like to make more.

[Elsie150]

Re: 2008 Low Carb GARDEN!!!!

That will be great Sunny. I just picked a grocery bag of tomatoes and they are sitting on my cupboard and I was wondering what the heck to do with them. We planted tomatoes mostly for our friends next door who eats them like apples and their grandchildren who do the same but they are away so now I have like 10 plants and loads of tomatoes and there is no way I can eat that many...LOL!