Hubby and I will be using the long holiday weekend to plant our garden too. Here's to a productive growing season everyone.

The corn is up already! Only 6 days to germinate!!

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And To The Republic For Which It Used To Stand

Got our garden in on Sat. After some high heat and strong rain it looks as though everything is holding up nicely.

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If it's in your pack, but you don't know how to use it...it's useless. So, always test your skills as a form of preparation...Don't wait until your life depends on it. That's a lesson you don't want to learn the hard way.

Well, the garden is coming back since our hail storm.

Canned a few pints of peas and strawberry preserves. Cut and froze a couple heads of broccoli. Beets are about ready to harvest. The new beans and cukes are starting to climb the trellis. Tomatoes and peppers are flowering. Corn is about a foot tall. Planted a couple cantaloupe and pumpkin. Oh yeah blackberries are flowering too.

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And To The Republic For Which It Used To Stand

Good to hear that things have bounced back nicely for you UJ.

So far I've been able to enjoy some nice hot peppers (only about 4 so far). They were great on hamburgers off the grill. Should be able to make a few good size batches of hot sauce later in the summer when the habanero and other peppers come in.

We've had alot of rain in Mass recently and it looks like the watermelon plants don't like too much water.

But the tomato plants have gone crazy. I've had to stake/tie up the tomatos three times already. I think a few of the plants are already over three feet tall.

_________________
If it's in your pack, but you don't know how to use it...it's useless. So, always test your skills as a form of preparation...Don't wait until your life depends on it. That's a lesson you don't want to learn the hard way.

Haven't done a garden update for awhile.

As everyone in the East and Mid-West knows, the rain has stopped and the temp has soared. Before I noticed it, the corn leaves were starting to curl. For the last week I've been dragging out 200' of hose to water it every night.
The "lower" garden gets watered from the rain I collected back in May.
Since my last post I've harvested and processed; 9 pints of beets, 4 pints of yellow wax beans, 2 more pints of peas, a couple more qt. bags of broccoli, and dehydrated 10 qts. of strawberries.
That's the end of the beets, broccoli and peas until I put the fall crop in next month.
In the next week or two it will be time to start making pickles and tomato sauce. Yellow and green beans will be ongoing for the rest of the summer.
Oh yeah. The cantaloupe's are about baseball size.

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And To The Republic For Which It Used To Stand

Last night I picked some ripe hot peppers (Kung Pao, Thai hot, and cayanne varieties) and made a small batch of hot sauce. Had enough to make two large bottles. That should last me a little bit unless I give some away which I probably will, especially since I'll be harvesting the habanero peppers soon. Now they will make a good batch of hot sauce.

_________________
If it's in your pack, but you don't know how to use it...it's useless. So, always test your skills as a form of preparation...Don't wait until your life depends on it. That's a lesson you don't want to learn the hard way.

Don't know why but the tomatoes are slow to ripen this year and I haven't had enough to make sauce yet; plenty to eat fresh though. Canned another 26 pints of wax beans and 1 qt. of green. Peaches are coming in and I've canned 7 qts. so far and dried 14 trays. Started eating fresh corn and cantaloupe last night. Still building up a supply of cukes to make it worth running the canner.

We finally got a substantial rain so this weekend the fall beets, peas, broccoli and taters are going in.

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And To The Republic For Which It Used To Stand

Well, we've had a couple of nights below 50° so most of the garden is done growing. I'll be picking the rest of the green tomatoes and bringing them inside to ripen. Beans will hang on the vine to dry and become next years seed. Peas and beets are coming along nicely and I should get a decent fall harvest. Potatoes took a long time to sprout so I'm not sure if they will produce.
In general, this years garden was fair. So far I've put up 30 qts of tomato sauce, 60 pts and 6 qts of beans, 22 qts and 3 pts of peaches, 26 qts and 9 pts of pears and dried about 8-10 lbs(dry weight) of peaches and pears. It will soon be time to start doing apples.

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And To The Republic For Which It Used To Stand