Well,I don't know how it happened with all the cool weather,but Nick ate his first tomato yesterday.The Siletz came thru,again.This is,in fact,the earliest we have ever gotten one. Go figure.

I just ate a good handful of black raspberries and the last of the strawberries and peas,for supper.

The rest of the vine crop transplants went in.Late for us,but the season is plenty long. I have one more variety of bean to go in,and the fourth batch of corn started and needing to find a spot for,and some strawflowers to start over bc a groundhog ate all I'd planted.

Bean disease has cleared up with the drier weather.Cuke beetles already around.My nemesis.Row covered cukes,and need to pyola all the vines and see what that does, this year.

diane - you need to see all the pretty,interesting new beans I just planted.What a kaleidoscope of color.Are they good to eat? Don't know yet. I don't care either. They are very cool looking. And busy fixing nitrogen.Potato and yellow eye and Trail of tears and Hidatsu Shield and appaloosa and......well,more. I don't think I better grow too many more varieties tho.Getting crowded.

-- Anonymous, June 08, 2001

Answers

What time did you say supper is?!

E. Central Illinois. Big salad out of the garden tonight - spinach and beet greens, snap peas, broccoli, radishes and green onions. Don't even have most of my 'maters in the ground yet, let alone ready to eat!

I must be really nuts - I'm looking FORWARD to canning green beans - 'course, the first ones aren't even blooming yet, and the later ones are just poking through the ground. Hopefully, I'll get some more planted this weekend; along with the rest of the garden! Started the next batch of broccoli seedlings; just now getting ready to freeze a few heads from the first batch as we've been eating it as fast as it gets ready. Also need to seed some more spinach.

The neighbor kid who helped me pick berries tells me he likes to pick beans - ALLRIGHT!! Someone crazier than me!! Pop and Hubby have agreed that they will help snap beans this year so I can get more canned. They also "suggested" that I consider canning them in quarts this year, instead of pints...wonder how that neighbor kid feels about crawling up in the attic of the shed to unearth the quart jars!? I'm happy - that'll save some of my pints for the 2 dozen MORE jars of spagetti sauce Hubby has ordered this year. I think I'll stop by CC and the Sallies to look for a couple more crock pots, sure makes spagetti sauce easier to make than standing and stirring all day!

Dang it, Sharon - now you got me wantin' to go play in the mud again!!

-- Anonymous, June 08, 2001

sharon.....aren't those little beans wonderful!!! I love to plant them and love to pick them and love to shell them. I mix a whole bunch of the dry ones that need shelling up in a bucket and the grandchildren and any other kids that come to visit spend HOURS shelling because it is like a treasure hunt so see what kind of bean that they get this time.

I am struggling to get the BASICS in and have had not time for the fun stuff yet. Had a wonderful day of sunshine yesterday and looks like sun again today. We did pick a decent batch of strawberries last night, more good ones than bad ones, so maybe we are on the right track again. I so enjoy reading about other people's gardening, keep it coming folks.

-- Anonymous, June 09, 2001

We missed the farmer's market again this week! Pick-up blew a hose going up the mountain, hauling our trailer with 80 bales of hay! Ended up dealing with that instead. Anyway, we just picked the motherload of shelling peas, freezing about 10# this afternoon. If we'd gone to market we would have had peas, eggplant, three types of summer squash, turnips, kale, chard, spinach, lettuce, new potatoes, radishes, maybe the last of the strawberries. Our blackcurrants are coming in, but the young chickens are getting a lot of them. We're getting as much milk as we want at the moment, free for the work of milking one of our neighbor's new Jerseys, so we'll be making strawberry and blackcurrant yogurt or ice cream. Black raspberries are just starting, but not at their best yet. Early plums look like they're almost ready. We seem to have won the potato beetle battle. Unfortunately we never got our Siletz in the ground, but the Sophies Choice and Paul Robeson are really close.

Best of all with the fruit coming in wine season is here again. We're all out!

-- Anonymous, June 09, 2001

Still have last year's spinach. Strawberries, bluberries, and raspberries have stopped blooming and are converting to berries. Peas are blossoming. Beans and corn haven't peaked up out of the ground yet. I set out squash and a few corn starts. They are still sitting there. The 75 or so sunflowers that my husband planted are doing okay, as long as the ducks (we're down to five now!) keep up with the slugs. May have to get more ducks, as the eagle hasn't been around for a long time.

I am in a holding pattern until after July 4, at which time I will plant for fall: broccoli, b. sprouts, cabbage, etc.

I refuse to deal with tomatoes anymore. They never ripen and usually look promising and then wilt at the last minute.

Some volunteer Kennebec potatoes seem to be holding their own.

I'm installing some ornamental things for the first time this year. Soil is still cool. Windy as all get out today so the laundry is drying well! Anyway, our season must be way behind the rest of yours.

-- Anonymous, June 09, 2001

gosh Sharon... I wanna cry... my beans are just poking their heads out of the soil... the tomatoes are still under their milk jug hats... and you are eating 'maters from the garden... wwwaaaaaawwwwwa

I love those yellow eyed beans... Trail of tears... and appaloosas... but never heard of the Hidatsu shield.. would like to know more about them...

I need to plant my anazai beans yet... I really like those the best...

my tobacco is looking a bit sad.. thing it is the cold ground and lack of good healthy sun light... and I really wanted a good crop this year... wanted to experiment with using tobacco for smoking the bee hives...

Sharon... you do belong to Seed Saver's Exchange???

-- Anonymous, June 10, 2001

Yeah, my garden looks pathetic compared to your description. First non-stop rain and cold, now it is hot, dry, no rain. At least it came last night, about a solid half inch, I would guess. I've got the 4 beds planted, but predictably, I want more beds made this year. Give 'em an inch, they want an acre!

I've been battling the tent worms. It looks like they MIGHT have peaked and are on the downside. Unfortunately I have to go respray Bt now since the rain.

I usually paper my raised beds to keep down on the weeds until the vegetables can get a head start. One bed has some cabbage at one end, then leeks, then a big space for a zucchini, and then shallots at the other end. I had trouble with critters under the paper mulch last year, so when I saw a suspicious lump in the paper, I started feeling of it gingerly....it was a good sized lump, with an odd feel. Like a red squirrel had gotten under the paper and died....ick...finally, since I couldn't thread the paper off of all the sprouting plants, I took a scissors and started to carefully cut a peek hole in the paper...the hole got larger...it finally turned out to be potato sprouts pressing up on the paper, trying to find the sunlight. Big, healthy sprouts. Apparently I didn't get all the potatoes out of that bed last year!!! So I have a few potatoes mixed in with the bed. It doesn't look quite as orderly as I planned, but I guess I can live with it. It's a lot better than finding a dead squirrel.

Unfortunately, I did see something strange and murky in the bottom of the water barrel where I let water sit and temper for the garden....I drained it off to water the dry beds and found a big old Pike head in it. We're a good half mile from the nearest lake, how did THAT get in there? I suppose the plants won't mind the extra bit of fertilizer and it hadn't been there long enough to really smell gross, but I do wonder how it got into a yard with an 8' fence. I suspect raccoons, of course. Something does get in and kill the wild rabbits that squeeze under the gate and the partridges.

I took the plunge and removed the Wall o'Waters from the tomatoes and the zucchini. The tomatoes look a little cramped, but they will probably be fine from past experience. I cheated a bit this year, and bought a BIG tomato plant from a nursery, already 18" or so high, a Fourth of July, and it is setting little fruit already, so maybe I WILL see a red tomato this year, unlike last!

-- Anonymous, June 10, 2001

julie...how nice that your raccoons are so helpful as to make fish fertilizer tea for you.How did you train them to do that?

Mine picked my strawberries...then promptly ate them.You can have mine and I'll take yours.

For those of you to the north.The advantage of living in the south is tomatoes in June if you push the envelope.The disadvantage is bug bugs bugs and HH&H (h*llish hot & humid).And lots of 'funguy' diseases. And ticks. And copperheads.

Tradeoffs I'm willing to take.

And now I guess I have to admit to having purple podded greenbeans on and ready to pick in a few days. That's a really good one for you all to consider if you haven't.Tolerates cool soil better and it's tasty and stringless and has a builtin blanching indicator.I have Royalty Purple bush bean,I think that is it.I use it as my first bean planting.

Sheepish ..have you tried Jim Baggett's(sp?) breeding program tomatoes,out of Oregon State? Siletz is one of his.I use it for my earliest tomato.O.P. too. Sets fruit parthenocarpicly(sp?) that is w/o pollination.So it sets in the cool weather when others won't.

Seems to be holding up to our crazy E KY weather and disease abundance too.Like I said before, I trial alot of NW varieties here, for their disiese resistence. Maybe consider it?

Yarrow.... no to membership tho I really should, to support the effort.I trade privately among a group I got to know.Also got tied in with a KY seed bank and prof at local college who started it.I'm real interested in local heirlooms.

And I beg, borrow and steal off my neighbors.Just kidding.When you get talking to people abt.it, and I inevitibly do,they give you seed or tell you someone who has something. People are good that way,folks here are,anyway. So I've gotten quite a few known locally only treasures.

Love it,love it,love it.I'm heavily addicted, you see.

Hidatsu I got off my traditional seed saving buddy in CO.If I remember which was which correctly,it looked like a larger yellow eye.Won't know now till they are dry,since they are all in the ground.

Potato = anasazi,if I remember that correctly,too.And they are very cool.This will be my first year growing them, as well. Wish me luck!

David,please keep me posted on tomato varieties,among other things, and what work best for you.Our climates are similar,except I'm wetter. And,I've not trialed the two you mentioned.I did Siletz and oregon spring (Siletz being an improved Oregon Spring) and stuck with Siletz as a good one.I'm especially interested in any defect and disease problems.

And Polly...you know it takes nothing at all to get you playing in the mud! Don't be blaming me :oD Hope you are getting this dry weather too.It's another beautiful day and I'm off to mulch and trellis some more beans.

Tootles all.Thanks for all the garden talk.

-- Anonymous, June 11, 2001

I guess I could try Siletz. However, my tomatoes get going pretty well, and then b/c we have a short season (even with transplants), fusarium wilt or equivalent seems to rear it's very ugly head and blacken and destroy my plants within a day or two, just as the tomatoes start putting on color. I pick the green tomatoes, which then never ripen indoors for me. Aside from a greenhouse, I just don't know what to do. I love tomatoes from the garden, and they are expensive in the stores. Cherry tomatoes can do well here, and I often consider starting some, but I never seem to get around to it.

It's cold and rainy today. The only gardening I did yesterday was moving a 1/2 yard of the rest of the gravel out of the front and onto the driveway. Now I have a big bare patch for planting something ornamental like the three tubs of shasta daisies on hand.

-- Anonymous, June 11, 2001

Finally pried my eyeballs open this am - got home from picking up Jes at 0230. Caught Pop closing windows - said he was turning on the air! Got to admit that it is humid as all get out and supposed to hit the 90's today...but I still wanted the windows open - won that battle, by gosh!

Went over to the garden supply to pick up some Henderson bush limas for Unc (thank-you, Sharon and Diane!) - swore that was all I was getting. Then remembered that I was out of beet seed. And then they had their perennials for half price so I got 2 bee balms. And some lemon balm. And some more Hungarian wax peppers. And Brandywine tomatoes. Birdhouse gourds. A different radish. Spinach. Jiffy 7 peat pellets on close out and I needed to start my punkins.

I should not be allowed out alone!

Came home and walked into a sauna, cleverly disguised as my house. Decided maybe Pop is smarter than he looks and closed up the windows and kicked on the air! Now, I gotta go till the garden and front flower bed. Gonna put all those 50 cent Wal-Mart close out bulbs and perennials on to soak in some water before I do. Thinking about buying the dogs a kiddy pool so they'll stay out of my flower beds; either that, or make them a "hog waller"!

I'm off to play in the dirt - DIRT! Not mud! Yippee!!

-- Anonymous, June 11, 2001

Sheepish -- I haven't had any trouble with fusarium or other wilt (knocking on wood), but I read in one of my organic gardening tomes that if you bury chopped up broccoli (stems and leaves) where you intend to plant tomatoes, that the decomposing brassica gives off a gass in the soil that kills the wilt virus.

Worth a shot!

-- Anonymous, June 11, 2001