Jen, thanks for starting the thread.

I have been out working on the north garden. I work so slow, and for short periods of time it seems as if I never get anything done.

I have taken some pictures, I may post a few later, but now I am getting ready to go out to eat with the kids.

Hu422, I can't wait for my green beans to produce. Right now I have lots and lots of blooms. I got a really late start on my garden so I am practicing a lot of patience. My plum trees are bearing so it looks like I'll be making jelly this week.

Pam, at least you have green beans and plumbs. I have tomatoes, peppers, sweet potatoes, onion, garlic, beets. egg plant, and turnips here at the house. I have other vegetables that my neighbor and I are growing together, but they are on his land or back away from my house in the pasture or in my wildlife garden.

Here are some of the tomatoes that Madge started. I pruned them heavily this morning and carried in some hay for mulch. I beg, borrow, or steal any kind of organic matter I can find to use for mulch. My standards are very low, the first qualifier is, it needs to be free, and not sprayed. I think that this one bale will be enough for both of the house gardens.

Jennifer, here are my volunteer sunflowers in the wildlife garden, You can note that on the left side of the picture, there is a sunflower that is producing several blooms. I don't know if this is normal, but I have been saving seeds from the ones that produce several blooms, last year I had one that had near 20 blooms on it, but only one large bloom.

Here is a picture of a row of roselle, zinnias, sunflowers, and some overflow egg plant on the near end, you will also note 2 more rows of roselle to the right, with about 6 rows of cow peas to the far right. This is all in the east side of the wildlife garden.

Nice sunflowers, Larry! Hope you enjoyed lunch with your kids.

Pam, plum jelly sounds amazing! I'm hoping to get some sandplums in a couple of weeks.

Rick, that's a lot of green beans. They're filling up the shop fridge....along with your squash! You're having a great harvest this year.

Not a lot new in the garden.

Except I have the first chamomile flowers! SO excited. I hope there's lots of them when I return! I know it's getting too hot for chamomile, but maybe I'll get a few flowers.

I also grabbed another batch of asparagus and another pint or so of green beans. They should keep until we return.

We have lots of work to do once we return. Some of the onions are ready to pull now, but they'll need to wait. Rick will want to deal with the green beans as soon as we return. So that will be a priority. There's also the garlic and potatoes.

I am NOT looking forward to the hot weather that's coming. It will have me wishing for winter.

I read an article about redheads and how they are sensitive to temperatures. My hair isn't bright red, but I do have the TT allele on the SNP1805088, which just means that I received that 'redhead' gene from both parents. There's more than one SNP/gene associated with red hair, tho. I wonder if all "red" SNPs are sensitive to temperature. My friend who is a lighter redhead is also sensitive to temps--both too cold and too hot. Most people don't like either....but we are really bothered by it.

Here's another interesting thing. The redhead gene has nothing to do with the darkness or lightness of your hair. It's a completely different thing. My genetic profile says that I am more than likely to have dark. I'm also more than likely to have red hair. Which is exactly correct. I have dark red hair.

If I had been smarter, I would have loved to work in genetics.

Wow. I'm tired and am rambling.

Jen, thank you for starting the thread. How are the gherkins doing? If they died, I have more. They are in little pots and growing so well and starting to get blossoms. You are welcome to have them.

Have a great week, Friends.

I put the gherkins in the circle bed to hopefully take up room. They're not really growing, neither is the ornamental sweet potato vines, but they are still alive.

Onions are doing well, probably pull them when I get back from camp. Potatoes are about 2ft tall but the couple I checked don't have potatoes. I now have tomatoes on 4 plants, so maybe I'll get fresh tomatoes soon.

I'm off to church camp this Sunday, so this week will be mainly preparing for that. We need to mow too, but the weather isn't cooperating. Just enough rain to keep us from doing it. So it may be a weedy mess by Sat.

My stuff perennial are all growing by leaps and bounds from the rain. Here is my blueberry harvest

We dug our 2nd potato patch, and got very little, about ( 2 ) 5 gal buckets,

I have been busy nearly all day and feel really well, but very tired. Madge has been gone for a week, and will be home late tomorrow, and she does not like for me to work as long as I did today, but I got more done while Madge was away. When Madge is home I like to do things with her, but she does not want anything to do with tractors, and that is how I spent most of my day.

I had a lot of old seeds and put in a good size food plot. The birds started eating the seed before I could get them covered.

I also spent time tying and mulching my tomatoes. My tomatoes look pretty good, but I have only picked a few, the Arkansas Traveler and Sungold were very tasty. I feel like my tomatoes should be larger this year, maybe the size will improve.

I am so tired I can hardly keep my eyes open, good night, all.

Holy potatoes, batman. We are going to need to really have to eat onions & potatoes along with those beets. We had a monster haul of red, white & blue potatoes. I had a feeling those plants were going to produce considering how strong they came on.

We cleared out a ton of space in the garden this week by yanking those cool season plants. The cleared space will probably be all sweet potatoes. May leave a little room for fall carrots. Our carrot haul was smaller this year by being crowded out from the potatoes.

Beans, squash, eggplant, tomatoes, peppers & melons now. A few standout tomatoes so far are brandy boy & the lone Cherokee purple. Might be the best looking CP plant i've ever had. Lost a couple of bush San Marzano, but the rest are loaded. Beefmaster replants are a little behind. Finally got a bit of rain this week and hoping for more. If we don't go drought mode, this year may be a good one. And we need it after last year.

hwy20, its nice to hear your good report. I sounds like you are having better luck than I am, everything hers is doing okay, but we are needing more water, and I am afraid that soon we will be needing a lot more water.

My wife got back home this evening, she was only gone a week, but we are both glad that week is behind us. I did not do a good job of keeping her things watered, I kept all of my stuff watered and did not even think about her plants until today, some were a little thirsty, but I think they well be okay, I was able to get more work done with her gone.

I am having a lot of trouble with my computer, and it gripes me to no end.

Our plan is to add another row of sweet potato, but give them plenty of space between. This time though, we aren't planning on putting up a fence. Will this be manageable? I guess just pile the vines up along the row? If you guys have some methods, i'll sponge up the knowledge.

hwy20, I think sweet potatoes will grow about any way you want to plant them. I planted mine closer together this year than I ever have before. I planted rows on 3' centers and around 16" in between. I have 105 plants where I had 60 last year. I took 4 ends off the runners and planted at the edge of my north garden a few days ago, checked this morning and they looked ok. I dont have a fence around my gardens, but plan on string a hot wire before it gets hot and dry. When things dry out the deer hit my garden very hard.

I leave the electric fence up around my wildlife garden, but it is large enough to drive my tractor on both sides of the fence, plus I try to keep the lawn a little neater than the wildlife garden. When covid hit I started planting people food in the wildlife garden, and planting food plots a few hundred yards away from the house.

Hwy20, my understanding is that sweet potatoes want to vine out and root in additional places, but it reduces the size your yield if you allow them to. George grows them with black plastic mulch and drip irrigation. They don't need rich soil. Water consistently.

Love you all. Hope Jennifer 's trip goes well..

XOXO

https://sweetpotatonetwork.boards.net/

Thanks, Amy. The trip went well. I'm just trying to not to cry every 5 minutes. My heart hurts. It was so hard to leave him there. We left out Monday morning by (rented) car and flew back today.

Came back to the heat and humidity. And I know it could be worse. It's been a decent year for us here. BUT....Oregon climate. Sigh. So nice. The area we stayed in is called Sellwood. There's a lot of small gardens that are very productive and beautiful. Plants simply thrive there. Ethan is currently living very near Sellwood. It's a really fun area. The houses are cute and the yards are my type of beautiful.

As we drove through Wyoming, Utah, Idaho, and Oregon, I really took note of their wildflowers. It was fun. I wanted to stop the car every 20 minutes and look....but, we couldn't.

Stella's family has a small garden.

My neighbor did a great job of caring for the pets. But, they are all so happy to see us. Minus Ethan. I sent him picture of them all.

We did a quick grocery shop, walked Josi, and I looked at the garden. It was nearly dark, but I got another bunch of asparagus, about 2 quarts of green beans, and 4 nearly ripe tomatoes.

It all looks pretty good, considering the aphids. The tomatoes definitely have disease, but we'll do what we can with them. The plants are loaded are loaded with fruit. Most of it is quite large.

And I ate my first sungold tonight. It was SO good.

It's back to work tomorrow. I told Mom that we would go to lunch and I would tell her about our trip. She picked us up from the airport, but I just couldn't really talk about it all. Too tired. And too emotional. She is also constantly trying not to cry. E is a unique person. And, she will miss him a lot. He is very careful with her feelings and mindful to talk to her often. About deep things. She loves all her grandkids equally in different ways....but she will miss this one a lot.

I'm sure all of you moms and grandmoms who are close to your kids totally understand.

Hope everyone's gardens are pretty and productive.

Jennifer, letting go is SO HARD. I understand.

Jennifer, I am glad you and hubbie are back home safely. You must let the kids go for their sake.

Jennifer, you are not alone as far as insects go, I dont ever remember having this many aphids before, if it were not for the lacewings I would have already sprayed. I have tried spraying them with water trying to knock them off, I am sure I removed some of them, but not enough that it shows. The aphids are not alone, I dont ever remember having this many grasshopper this early.

I dont have a lot of stuff planted in the house gardens. I think that neighbor and I growing gardens together was a mistake. I think Madge likes it because I don't always have the counter top loaded with produce, but I am working harder than ever. I don't have to do the walking work, but it seem as though I am working on equipment, or operating equipment every day.

Maybe I am a little depressed, my longtime gardening neighbor died this past week, I am the last of the old timers left in this small group. My long time garden buddy was almost 92, and has not been able to garden for several years.

We got some needed rain last night. We have been getting enough rain that little hand watering has been needed. I hope the past two rains bring the seeds I planted in the food plot