Congrats on your beans, I havent tried beans yet. I am going to try lima beans in the early fall.

Luther

Congratulations! I just sent you an email asking about that a minute ago, lol.

Those butterbeans look yummy and I know the hard work to shelled them.:)

And that okra looks fantastic! I am growing okra from the seeds that Tom gave me, and I also gave some to my new gardener friend Louie to grow them, he said when I gave him the seeds, "I never knew there was red okra"
How tall is your okra? pods look nice green and red, and tell us what Dottie is going to make? we want to know.:)

Silvia

I love butter beans but my husband doesn't so he doesn't grow any. :-( Yours look great.

They look great! I haven't tried butter beans yet. I have some clemson spineless okra going that I started in early March, but it is just now taking off. I'll be happy if I get even half the crop you have already!

Silvia, Dottie said the butter beans tasted great. But she does not eat okra. I love okra cooked any way it can be cooked. Guess because I was raised on it as a kid. My okra is 5 or 6 feet tall.

Truscifi, Clemson spineless okra is a very popular type.
Minderella, I plan on planting a fall crop also.
Starryrider, either you love them or you hate the taste of them. I love all the butter beans and limas.

Luther

Luthur - Great looking okra and butterbeans! It's good to see another variety of limas that will produce here. My husband just loves limas so I grew 2 bush varieties last year but they didn't produce very well. This year all I have are the Black Jungle beans from Silvia which are producing pods now. As for okra, my husband doesn't like it so I never made an extra effort to get some plants going this spring.

Can the Jackson Wonder Butter beans be ordered from a company? The picture looks like they are a bush variety, right?

Christine

Hi Christine,

The Jackson wonder bush speckle butter bean seed I purchased at a local feed & seed store. But they have them at rareseeds.com victoryseeds.com and other internet web sites. They can be grown as a fall crop in your area. The Flordia speckle butter bean is about the same except it is a pole type.

Luther

YUMMY butter beans! I've got some too, but the harvest isn't very good. I don't like Okra, yuck!

Julie, that is what my wife says about okra. I think anyone has to be raised eating okra to like it.

Luther

Most of everyones cucumbers are about had it for this spring. Silvia gave me a package of Asian cucumber seed and I was late in gettting them planted.

My 1st picking of Asian Cucumbers.

Got something new to eat from my garden today.

Luther

Luther

Those cucumbers look tasty! To grow them straight Disney use plastic molds, lol. Maybe we can make something like that for ours. Those cucumbers take the heat better than any of the ones that I tried.

Here are some of mine

Silvia

Silvia,

Would the cardboard tube from an empty paper towel roll work for that? Usually when we grow cucumbers we don't have the heavy rains that would unravel the cardboard tube.
Just a thought that might work.

Lou

Lou, that sounds like a great idea! I am going to try that next season, I will let you know how that works.
Same thing like they train watermelons to be square.

Silvia

Here is a link that might be useful: watermelon

Sylvia,

My Asian cucumbers were all crooked too, but I never thought of trying to make them grow straight until you mentioned about what Disney did with plastic tubes. I will also try the paper towel tubes next year, I hope it works.

I think I like the round melons better than those square watermelons. That's going way beyond the normal for me.

Lou

I'm curious as to what kind of recipes y'all use cucumbers in that you don't slice them crossways?

Lou, I thought the same thing, I like my watermelons round.

Writersblock, sometimes I make a cucumber salad with cucumber ribbons, I just sliced them with a mandoline, put vinegar, salt, pepper, a little bit of sugar and hot pepper if you like.
Here is some info for using them as a garnish.

Silvia

Here is a link that might be useful: cucumber ribbons

Thanks, Sylvia. I was just trying to understand why it would matter whether they're straight or not. I'm sure it's fabulous, like everything you cook. :)

Hi, I was in Publix grocery store today and they had a cucumber called Euro. It was straight and looked about the same size as mine. The price was $2.49 each. Boy! I'm eating some expensive cucumbers. I'm gonna do like Lou suggested and put mine in a paper towel insert to make them straight and start selling them. I think I'm gonna be rich.

Luther

Writersblock,

I can't find any crooked jars to put my crooked pickles into when I make pickles out of my crooked cukes.

Lou

You are sounding a bit crooked Lou. Have you checked your Depends lately?

he-he

~dianne

Hi Everyone,

Have another 1st from my garden. Here is a picture of my Black Jungle Butter Beans.

Black Jungle Butter Beans

Now for the final product. My shelled Black Jungle Butter Beans.

The 1st Black Jungle Butter Beans.

This one of the items on the menu tonight.

Luther

The shellies look to die for. I'm envious.

Speaking of cornbread, mine made in fall time made from fresh dent corn is unreal. Or tortillas made with freshly-dried pole beans. Still grinding corn now from last year but it isn't the same anymore.

Lou, that is so good! wonderful harvest! Mine are just planted recently, it is going to be a long time to harvest. And I am going to plant more okra, summer crops are very good.:)

Silvia

The first earthbox I planted with Red Noodle Yard Long beans are just breaking through and sprouting, I will be planting one earthbox every week for fresh beans through the hot months of summer. I start planting them around the 1st of June as each earthbox of my regular green beans and yellow beans finish up, I plant the red noodles and yard long green beans in them. I'm slowly learning how to rotate my earthbox plantings for each of the seasons here to keep fresh home grown veggies on the table. The earthboxes that grew the peas in the spring were re-planted with the heat tolerant butter beans.(I have 40 earthboxes in rotation)
It has been awfully hot out during the day and I've resorted to doing my planting at night using floodlights and sleeping during the heat of the day.

I hope I got all my seeds planted right side up!
Lou

Lou, what kind of yield do you get from one planting in one earthbox?

Writersblock,
It is hard for me to make comparisons because what I plant in earthboxes are only in the screen-greenhouse. I don't plant the same veggie outdoors in the open. I plant enough earthboxes to meet my table needs. The plants in the earthboxes are very close together, IE; the yardlong beans are 20 plants per box (2 rows of 10) and are fed more often. Corn (2 rows of 8) Tomatoes (4 staggered) If something don't meet my table needs I then will buy & plant more earthboxes. I sequence plant the boxes so there are always things to harvest. Many earthboxes are on their third or fourth year production with the same plants because I have heated tent greenhouses within the screen-greenhouse during the winter. My screen-greenhouse is 40' by 50' and 15 feet tall to accommodate my trees growing inside. I will be building another screen-greenhouse if it ever cools down enough outdoors for me to work out there.

Sorry I cannot be more specific,
Lou

Thanks, Lou!

pnbrown, do you have a grist mill or how do you grind your Dent corn. As a kid we had a community grist mill and they would grind the corn for half of the meal. Then they sold their half to folks that didn't have corn.

Luther

Hi Everyone,

I do get dessert to go with all these other vegetables. Thanks to Silvia and her recipe, we all acquired from her Brunch party.

Here is Dotties Zucchini Bread

Dottie said she used the green Zucchini instead of the Butterstick. That shows how much I know. But it is out of this world, no matter which color she used.

Luther

Luther, that zucchini bread looks so yummy! And Dottie is such a great cook, you are a very lucky man!
Having veggies coming out of your own garden can not be beat.

Silvia

Luther, I have the Diamant mill, which luckily I bought long before the dollar collapsed against the euro because I couldn't afford it now. It is a superb machine.

Hi Everyone,

I have been busy these last few days. Made me another raised bed. Limited time I could work in this heat.

Here is a before picture

This is the after picture of my new raised bed. During the summer months we can't grow many vegetables.

My Cowpeas

I hope to make a bumper crop of cowpeas.

Luther

Hi Luther

Very nice new beds! and you are going to harvest a lot of summer veggies. I grew Mississippi Purple Hull last season, they were very productive and I had them on the trellis.

Silvia

Silvia, thanks for your nice complement. These are suppose to be the bush variety. Time will tell.

I pulled up my Helda pole beans, after saving some seed. The hot weather had gotten them. So I replaced them with those limas and they are all up.

Thank you,

Luther

Hi Everyone,

My tomato crop is winding down toward the end. We have these hot summer months we can't grow tomatoes. I grow tomatoes every month except the hot months when the blossoms won't set.

Here is a picture of some of my tomatoes & bell Peppers.

Some of the tomatoes didn't turn out so great. The Black Cherry my wife loved and the Sun Gold. Some of the disease resistance ones I paid big bucks for the seed was a disappointment. But overall I've had a great tomato spring.

Those are the Big Bertha Bell Peppers. We freeze quite a few to cook with, when they aren't plentiful. I try to grow them year around.

Luther