The Dawg Patch

[pepperhead212]

I don't think too many people grow their own sesame, though I do remember someone that did, just as a curiosity.

As for dealing with excess eggplants, I dehydrate it, cut into large cubes. Keeps forever this way, and a pound reduces to about 1.35 oz dry. I've ground this up in the Vitamix, to make a flour.

[GoDawgs]

I don't think too many people grow their own sesame, though I do remember someone that did, just as a curiosity.

As for dealing with excess eggplants, I dehydrate it, cut into large cubes. Keeps forever this way, and a pound reduces to about 1.35 oz dry. I've ground this up in the Vitamix, to make a flour.

Growing sesame... that was me last year. LOL! It was one of my garden toys. I did get seed from it but it was the brown seeded variety, not the white.

I gave some to a neighbor yesterday along with a few recipes I printed out. Last night I was going through the eggplant section of a big 3" binder of veggie recipes I've collected over time and have pulled out a half dozen. Most of those we rated 4 or 5 stars when they were first made.

@pepperhead212, what is the texture of your dehydrated eggplant when reconstituted?

[JayneR13]

Did you get enough to make tahini? it seems to me that tahini would require quite a lot of seeds! I'm reminded of the year I decided to make dandelion wine, which requires 7 cups of petals separated from the sepals. That took a few nights in front of the TV, let me tell you! But it was a mighty fine wine.

A few pictures from my own garden, if that's OK. One of my Costata Romanesco squashes is putting out some girls! I've trimmed a few aborted fruits already but these look like they have possibilities. I got the idea from seeds I got from last year's swap.

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My tomatoes are flowering, and I have a tiny set! I believe this is a Firebird sweet, also from last year's swap. I saved the seed, some for myself.

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One of my peppers, possibly cayenne, has some nice fruits formed. My Beaver Dams do as well. This is the earliest I've ever had peppers, let alone such large ones! I'll have to add starting peppers in March to my tool kit.

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Miss Yin enjoying her new territory. Window seats are beloved of cats, especially if they're by open windows! I think outdoors must have been terrifying for her, but she's getting over it. I am sad that I had to put Kona down, but I'm loving the peace of my house! Nine months of cat fights was wearing.

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I also have a small batch of lavender flowers drying, and it looks like I'll have to remake 8 pints of strawberry preserves that didn't gel. Either Pomona pectin does have an expiration date or I didn't use it right, not sure which. All I have right now is 2 year old Sure-Gel so I think a trip to the store is in order soon. And I have 11 bags of strawberries in the freezer! That's wealth beyond imagining! Farmer's market season is a busy time. Yay!

[pepperhead212]

@GoDawgs The thing I like about the dehydrated eggplant is how it doesn't totally fall apart, even when rehydrated, then cooked - it keeps some texture to it. Even cooked in an instant pot in a curry, with some legumes, after soaking in hot water, it doesn't fall apart. And I often make Chinese stir-fries with rehydrated cubes, and let it simmer, covered, for a bit, and again, it still has a texture. And it absorbs the seasonings, as well as the fresh. What I normally do is cut them a little larger than I usually would, if using fresh, as they don't expand that much, when soaked.

[GoDawgs]

@JayneR13, it sure does look like you have Romanesco on the way!

I can't get Firebird Sweet to germinate. On the second try with three seeds in the container each time. All the others started at the same time came up as normal. I have a second batch of seed I got and will try the third time.

I got my first Beaver Dam pepper the other day. Everything I've read says it's "mild" and that any heat is subtle, less than jalapeno. Not this one! A lot hotter than that and not growing next to any other hot pepper. I picked it green. maybe it will be more mild when red. Disappointed.

[JayneR13]

Wow! My germination testing, assuming those are seeds that I sent to the swap, indicated a rate of 90%. Hopefully you can get them to grow because they're a nice, prolific variety. Of course, look at the differences we had growing Lil' Lise. Yours went gangbusters, mine went bust! And yes, hopefully the BD will be more mild when red. Mine were never that hot but again, different gardens, different conditions.

[GoDawgs]

Well, we got rain this morning... if you can call three minutes of mist and light drizzle rain. LOL! 5th Gear and I were in the garden and just kept doing what we were doing.

Here are the baby pecans that are falling because it's so dry.

24.06.24 Baby pecans dropping due tpo droughty conditions.JPG

I discovered the first squirrel damage in the bed of Incredible corn. These were immature ears and still small but it gave me a good idea of where the corn is at. If any more appear I'll have to put netting walls around the bed.

24.06.24 First squirrel damage on Incredible corn, 2 ears.JPG

The Red Noodle Asian beans are starting. I took six of them today. They're about 18" long so six make a good serving when cut up. I planted just a five or six foot section from the MMMM seed sample I had and will collect seed later to plant more next year. They take the heat better than regular bush beans and start making when the bush beans go away. A shout out of thanks to whoever sent the seed in!

24.06.24 Red Noodle beans coming.JPG

I had another PT session for this leg problem. Friday is the last scheduled appointment but there may be a couple more depending on progress. At least I can walk pretty good now. Hurt or not, life goes on and there are things to do!

[JayneR13]

That's right, there's always something to do! My Aunt Lorraine used to say that the person who can't find nothing to do, never did nothing! And I'd send you some of our rain if I could. We're getting pounded! Another T storm expected tonight in the wee hours of the morning. ARES said to be ready for a possible Skywarn activation. Sorry, but at 1-4am I'm sleeping! I have to work tomorrow. I'm just happy that I won't have to weed in the rain on Thursday, when I go to the food pantry garden. I want to side dress some fertilizer for them and in the pouring rain isn't a good time for that! I made a quick weeding pass last time but that was it. It was pouring so hard I didn't bother to rake.

[GoDawgs]

We hit 98 with 104 heat index yesterday. Weather man says maybe 100 today with a 104-108 heat index. Dances With Hoses is getting a real workout.

The peach tree is loaded this year. The variety is called Desert Gold and I originally chose it because the description said it was heat and drought tolerant and only needed 250 chill hours. It is supposed to make peaches even in areas that have no frost. We picked some yesterday. They're still hard but a few days on the counter will soften them up. The poor tree has been relatively ignored over the years but now that it's making we'll make a real effort to spray in the spring and fertilize. Hopefully we can get enough to can up to enjoy in the winter.

24.06.24 First basket of peaches, Desert King.JPG

Another MMMM cucumber has made it's first cuke. 'Tokiwa Jihai' (Tokyo Green) is a slicer whose description says "Fruits remain in superb eating condition even when they get very large. Never bitter." Never bitter? I really hope so. The first one was really nice. We'll try it today.

24.06.24 Tokiwa cuke plant.JPG

24.06.24 First Tokiwa cuke.JPG

That Early White Bush Scallop squash is flowering like crazy! So far I've picked one but there are two or three more getting bigger.

24.06.24 White Bush Scallop squash.JPG

I've made the decision to let almost all those bean varieties I'm trialing go dry in preparation for seed collection. The pods on them are fading in color and starting to dry so no more water for them.

So the bean rush is over and we are awaiting the corn rush which should be in the next 7-10 days. We're usually picking corn around July 4th. Once the corn is done it should be about time for the first tomatoes to start ripening and then off we go into canning those. Due to one disaster or another it's been a long time since we were able to can a lot of tomatoes and I have a hunch this year might just make up for lost time.

[MissS]

I can almost smell those peaches from here.

The scalloped Patty Pan squash are my favorites.

[JayneR13]

I like patty pans too. I grew those for the first time a couple of years ago. Very prolific, very tasty! They combined with some other golden squash that I had to make a great pickled squash recipe!

[GoDawgs]

Today was the hottest day of the year so far. This is the first time though, that I've seen the temp at 101 and the heat index at 98! It's the same at several weather stations so it's not a misread. Must be the extremely dry air. I don't think I've ever seen the humidity at 17%.

Thank goodness everything is mulched. That and a good morning watering is getting the garden through the day. Plus more water around the base of the plants late afternoon/early evening so they can hydrate overnight.

I've been really surprised how plants have hung in there, especially the cucumbers and squashes. This morning I went to the garden at 10am to water and pull Provider bush bean plants (they're done) and it was already 90. The squash and cuke leaves were already starting to droop but perked up after watering. I put down the last app of fert for the corn and watered it in by hand. When I finished it was 12:00 and when I got to the house it was 98.

The corn has been getting 90 minutes of overhead water every evening. Still by late afternoon the next day it's all spikey like tonight....

24.06.26 SQ corn spikey in 101 heat.JPG

After a day in this heat the cukes were really droopy, some more than others. These are Suyo Long this afternoon but you can see an undroopy vine of National Pickler higher up on the right side of the photo. I'm beginning to suspect that nematodes are alive and well in the Suyos as they restrict water uptake with the knots they make in the roots. Or maybe Suyo's react like that to the heat more than National Picklers do. No telling. Both got the same amount of watering this morning.

24.06.26 Suoy droopy in 101 heat.JPG

I did find nematodes in half of the Provider bed so that bed will get a heavy planting of brassicas this fall with the hopes that it will reduce the population enough to let me plant other stuff there next spring. Still, those infected plants kept making beans like there was nothing wrong. Go figure.

The longer I live and the more I study and learn, the more I realize there is so much still to learn and so many more mysteries to unravel. And that I will never really understand it all until that day when the Master Gardener of us all explains it to me himself.

[JayneR13]

That heat is really something! I can see the maters and the squashes liking it though. The brassicas, not so much. Up here too, when the heat really sets in I'll have to water twice daily. That's one thing that scares me: if a tornado ever crashed the water grid, my garden would really suffer! And tornados going right through town are not unheard of up here.

I spent some time at the food pantry garden today, weeding and fertilizing. There are lots of flowers and fruits set, the potatoes & onions are up nicely, and another pound of herbs hit the table for distribution. I may have to take a bit less for a few weeks to let the herbs grow back. I've been hitting them pretty hard I don't think the last gardener did much in the way of harvesting so they were pretty big bushes. Not anymore And of course, powdery mildew is setting into the cucurbits. Lots of rain and cool weather, plus cucurbits. Time for some copper.

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[GoDawgs]

Yesterday it got up to 101 outside. I did a few putters before noon and then quit for the day. There were a few more bunches of drying garlic hanging under the pole shed and it was ready to clean up, rebundle and bring indoors. They are now hanging in a spare closet with a fan on them from morning to night for about another week to make sure all moisture is gone. About 70 bulbs in all.

24.06.27 All garlic now hung.JPG

Knock on wood, as disastrous as last year's tomato failure was due to herbicide in the compost, this year's tomato crop might be the best ever, bar none. It has to be the potting soil donated to me from a secret source. It contains all kinds of good stuff in it. Tomatoes are getting bigger than I've ever been able to grow them before. This is the Bella Rosa plant. I've never seen it so loaded.

24.06.27 Bella Rosa loaded.JPG

The other day I posted a pic of a conjoined squash, two squashes grown together. This afternoon Pickles spied a conjoined baby Matriosik eggplant. That should be fun to watch grow!

24.06.27 Conjoined baby Matrosik eggplants.JPG

And finally there's a volunteer tomato growing up in a bucket of unused potting soil full of weeds. Must be a stray seed from my own compost that I mixed into the potting soil. Whatever it is, it's a potato leaf variety. We'll see what happens.

24.06.27 Volunteer tomato in weed bucket.JPG

[JayneR13]

Will those conjoined plants grow into two fruits, or one large and strange-looking one?

[GoDawgs]

Will those conjoined plants grow into two fruits, or one large and strange-looking one?

I've not seen an eggplant do this but if they grow like the conjoined squash did, it will be a strange one.

24.06.14 Conjoined straightneck squash.JPG

Edited to add: Maybe it'll look like striped purple butt cheeks!

[Seven Bends]

Nice crop of squash on that plant! Can't remember, did you say what variety?

[GoDawgs]

Nice crop of squash on that plant! Can't remember, did you say what variety?

That's Early Prolific Straightneck from Ferry Morse and bought at Walmart. It's the one I've found that does best here and only from Ferry Morse's seed. The same variety from others just doesn't produce as well as these. Go figure.

[GoDawgs]

After I pulled out some failing Crawford pole beans, on June 16 I planted some Blue Lake pole beans there. It was kind of an experiment to see if I could get beans to germinate and grow in this really hot weather. The plantings were covered with leaf mulch to try to keep the soil cool enough for germination. Starting on Day 3 I'd pull the mulch back a bit to see if anything was popping up and then recover it. The fourth day after planting the first one popped up.

All told 15 of the 24 seeds planted came up. I've added a little more mulch and have made sure that they get watered once a day and sometimes twice when temps have been 100+.

24.06.27 Hot weather Blue Lake pole beans .JPG

Meanwhile, I took my own photo (not the one I found on the internet) of what I think is the Riptortus bean pod sucker bug and sent it to the local UGA Extension agent for ID.

24.06.27 Possible Riptortus sp..JPG

She sent a reply the next day and confirmed that's what it is. I had asked if an application of Neem after the pyrethrin I already sprayed would be beneficial and she agreed. I want to get rid of these things before fall bean planting time! They are ruining the bean seeds in the pods so seed collection may be greatly reduced if not a total bust. These were from the MMMM and specifically grown so I could send some back to the MMMM.

Today I will pull out more beans and hang them to dry.

[Seven Bends]

Nice crop of squash on that plant! Can't remember, did you say what variety?

That's Early Prolific Straightneck from Ferry Morse and bought at Walmart. It's the one I've found that does best here and only from Ferry Morse's seed. The same variety from others just doesn't produce as well as these. Go figure.

That's a great old standard. Prolific for sure in your picture! We grew it for years, but for some reason it stopped doing well for us (don't remember which seed company) so we switched over to Early Summer Crookneck instead. We've had great crops of crookneck for two years now, and they're very sweet and tasty, but it does seem to get warty and hard-skinned more quickly than Early Prolific Straightneck.