Jennifer, thanks for starting the thread. I think it was you that said something positive about Super Sioux tomatoes. Anyway I found some tomatoes at Atwoods at the end of the spring buying season. There were very few plants left, but I found 6 or 7 that I though I could keep alive, Super Sioux, and, Green Zebra were 2 of the ones I bought for a $1.00 each.

The picture does not do justice to the plant, but I am impresses. This is the Super Sioux, it is covered in tomatoes. The plant was too bushy, and no good way ti prune it, so I just cut 4 limbs off, and stuck them in the soil by the plant, they all rooted and still growing.

This is the Green Zebra, I know nothing about it, other that It is dropping a lot of blossoms, I don't even know how to tell when they are ripe.

Kim, I picked 3 more tomatoes from your plant this morning while weeding. I also got a good supply of, what I think are bunching onions, but they had heads almost as big as a golf ball.

Happy Father’s Day to all of our fathers. I hope you celebrate well

I used azalea fertilizer back when the blueberry plants were young. They probably need some more. It's been years since I had a soil test. Last test recommended 3 ton of lime per acre. I'mI'm in Latimer countrcountycountrcounty

There are several u pick blueberry places in Oklahoma so I guess I'm not the only one that can grow them. Mine have been neglected a few years. They have Johnson grass and Bermuda competing with them.

I sure hope all the fathers had a good Father's Day. And I hope everyone else had a good day/weekend.

We brought in Hideaway pizza. Tom got to choose the varieties of pizzas (Of course I got a Pizza of the Gods too. It's a vegetarian pizza but not like the regular ho hum veggie pizzas) because it was Father's Day. I made a salad and blackberry cobbler from our garden blackberries. It was very good. I've had a decent amount of blackberries this year. This is their 3rd year, I think. I planted two of the Triple Crowns from Selena this year too.. They didn't produce this year, obviously.

Anyway...pizza was a good choice just because I worked yesterday morning and had about 3 and a half hours of sleep that night.

And who doesn't like pizza? Especially Hideaway.

Larry, it wasn't me who said positive things about Super Sioux. I do believe I picked up a plant from Bruce last year or the year before and it snapped in the wind (if I remember right.) It's one I would like to try in the future, tho.

Oldbusy, you give me hope for growing blueberries. I have an area next to the Kitchen Garden that has two giant piles of woodchips courtesy of ChipDrop.

I have appreciated ChipDrop and have certainly used the chips often, but it looks a mess on the property and the grass is beginning to grow up in the remaining chips. At the end of this year, we might just tarp the entire thing and let it break down for a year or so. Then....maybe that would be a good little blueberry area. Of course, we'll need to bring in trucks of chips each year and will be forced to use them immediately to clear them out of Tom's truck. But that could be a good thing. Force me to get everything mulched in a day.

I started in the fall of 2022 adding a little azalea fertilizer to all of my berry bushes even the elderberries.

I need to figure out what's been going on with my strawberries for the past two years, tho.

Last night I watered all the garden areas including the flowerbeds. Rick watered his buckets of super hot peppers and the Survivalist Garden.

Some rain sure would be nice.

I've picked squash bugs from the Seminole pumpkins. The plants look healthy but no blossoms yet. I don't have blossoms on my cukes either. But do on the Kajari melons.

Turnpike news. Some homeowners are beginning to get letters from OTA regarding access to properties for surveying reasons. We do have a lot of action up and down IH. Who knows if it's turnpike, new neighborhoods, or something else. Busy, busy place. I have noticed that many of the properties on IH are neglected now. The owners aren't maintaining them well.

Even Ethan noticed the changes since the last time he was here 6 months ago.

I guess we'll wait and see how this progresses.

Anyway...I didn't sleep well last night either and am rambling and not making much sense.

Busy1, I bet that you are not the only one that can grow Johnson grass and Bermuda grass either.

I am digging out the Glyphosate because I need help fighting both of those grasses. I am also digging out some T post to string a hot wire to try to remind the deer that they are not welcome in my garden.

Busy1, your bushes look much better than the few I see around here. The color of you bushes suggest that they are not hungry for anything.

I have a soil test every few years, and they always say the same, add lime, and nitrogen. My native soil PH is in the 5.5 range, I normally amend to 6 - 7, I think the last soil test in the garden was around 6.5

Busy1, I would like to add, that I am very happy seeing you post again

Go to dimeo w bb site and they have information on how to plant blueberries.

Thanks Larry, I miss the few times you came into my store in talihina. talihina it is long gone. The store not talihina. I can't correct what I typed on this site with my phone. It just keeps adding to it.

That's DiMeo web site. They used to list their varieties . They have 32 different ones but don't list them now.

My bushes are showing variegated leaves now.

Robert, noticed that the store was gone. I don't go to Talihina much anymore, my Dr. down there died, and the Indian clinic at Poteau has expended enough to do the test that I need. I am still battling cancer and heart disease, but still able to do most of the things I want to do.

Small harvest when I got home today. Several cucumbers were yellow so I left those to plant later. I got Porter, giant crimson, death s sweet Sue. Everything looks great.

Kim, what do you mean (to plant later?). How do you save cucumber seeds? The only cucumbers I have had from an earlier year were volunteer. I would expect to save cucumber seeds you would treat the cucumber like a squash, pumpkin, or anything else, but I have never tried it.

We have only harvested one ripe tomato from the plants we started, but we are getting enough cucumbers to make up for the lack of tomatoes. I am getting plenty of fried green tomatoes, and those I like better.

Larry I'm doing my best to encourage Young people to grow what they eat. My nephew and wife are coming this weekend to process a pig I have grown. With my walk in cooler and skills I can instructoinstruct them how to do everything including curing ham and bacon.

Teaching the younger ones ( even the older ones ) is a great service. I am trying to teach my daughter and grand daughter to grow a few things, but I am not making the progress I would like to be making. Grand daughter and husband are trying to grow a few things in town. Daughter is trying to grow a few thing in containers.

I keep telling my kids and grand kids that food may be harder to get in the future, and knowing a little about growing food may be very important some day, but they don't believe that as strongly as I do.

I don't think I could ever get my daughters of grand daughters to butcher any kind of animal, the sons and grandsons do ok with it, but the girls think animals are for petting.

I have hundreds of cucumber seeds saved from two years ago. I just use the ones that are orange or yellow. Squeeze the seeds out of the pulp. Then I shake in mason jar with water. Pour of the pulp repeat. Then I lay them on paper plate and dry. One of these overripe ones I am going to slice and plant. See if I get any too sprout.

Well, guess what, I'm not the only one frustrated with Google or Bing searches that turn up mostly commercial or dubious results .

From the WSJ this morning. They say to add ' reddit " at the end your search and you can get results from real people. I've never done Reddit. Maybe I need to rethink that. Recently, I did get some info on a barbecue smoker maker, who had ripped people off for a half million dollars from a link to Reddit. That info was not available anywhere else. I did a Bing AI search on the pit builder and got a glowing three paragraphs about how great the pits were and how upstanding an individual he was.

So maybe the folks at Reddit ,can help me develop a plan for cutworms. But I'll be too busy today, I'm working on moving dirt/grass to the bare spot in my front yard. Oh joy.

This link should get ya past the paywall at the WSJ

Can You Replace Google Search With Reddit? I Tried It for a Week

Lynn, sometimes Reddit will come up for me when I search on Edge, but I don't use it regularly.

My son is sitting here, and I asked him because I know he uses Reddit. He said months ago he intuitively started adding Reddit at the end of his searches (and that a lot of other people probably did as well). He said as long as you stay away from political things you can get some good information on "how to do" type of things.

I really didn't do anything outside in the garden yesterday. I gave E a full tour in the early morning and S a tour in the evening while E was visiting another friend.

In the kitchen, I made pickled red onions--4 pints. They weren't canned....just refrigerator pickles. They're really good. I made a jar a couple of weeks ago and they're nearly gone. There were strawberries from last year in the freezer, so thawed those and made strawberry kombucha.

I went out around 630 this morning and picked probably 5 gallons of tomatoes in the SG.

The first Dr. Wyche ripened, so I have some seed soaking and will turn around and start it this weekend/next week for the fall. Hopefully the other heirlooms aren't far behind.

There's disease on most of the plants but nothing too concerning. That's just how it is. Part of the issues are they weren't tied up or mulched properly early enough.

I do want to start more Sungold as well.

It's weird to have a two large empty raised beds in the back garden. It's where the onions and garlic were. Something is up with that soil and I need to test it probably. The 6 habaneros were eaten other than the stems and most of the cukes were killed by cutworms. But the remaining ones are just sort of stunted. I don't know what to do with that area really. It's good to have as overflower. Usually the onions and garlic do really well there. It has an arched cattle panel trellis between two of the beds and I've consider just putting those passion vines on it and stop trying to grow food on the trellis. They only thing that did well on it was the noodle beans until the aphids got them. I just don't know.

It wouldn't be a bad spot for the passion vines, tho, it's right there next to a lot of my native stuff anyways.

We going to see baby boy this morning, so I'd better get around.

I just got a gardening seat today from Laken, and Nick, as a Fathers Day present, it is one of those that you can kneel on, or sit on. They are very nice, but I already have one that needs to be repaired, almost everything I own needs to be repaired. The gardening seat does not work well in soft soil, but most stools don't work well in soft soil, that is one reason I spend so much time on my hands and knees, in that position I have 4 wheeled drive.

I am working on the south garden again, still trying to get a stand of peas and beans up. I went back and retilled the soil, I was surprised at how dry the soil was. I also tried to put up an electric fence yesterday evening, the ground was so hard I did not get any of the post driven down like they should be. Part of my problem is that I am not the young, strong man I once was

I think that I left my onion sets in the ground too long. The sets were overgrown very badly, which may have kept them from drying properly.

Well, I have rested long enough, I need to try to get a little work done.

Everyone staying cool? It turned hot pretty quick this year. We spent the weekend on the Illinois and it was as crowded as I've ever seen it. I've been floating that river for a long time on the biggest holidays of the year and have never seen the wall of people like that. The clientele gets more "interesting" as I get older, lol.

We are munching on green beans, squash, potatoes, beets & the brassicas from several weeks back. We've only pulled about 4 ripe tomatoes, but I'm guessing the determinates (san marzano & bush steak) are about ready to turn it on. Speaking of drunk, I think I may have been hitting the sauce because I've got 2 indeterminate beef steaks in my determinate row. Every time I put on a new weave, those 2 plants were always ready for 2 strings while the others were not quite tall enough for the one I was putting up. I believe that mystery is solved.

Cowpeas are coming up, and the sweet corn is looking good. I've had a suspicion that I have root knot nematodes, so we are doing Okra again to experiment. Sure wish I had some melons on and growing :/. Outside of that, it's pretty much all the heat lovers now:

Eggplant

Cowpeas (zipper cream & Mississippi something)

Peppers

Sweet Corn

Okra

Sweet Potatoes (Georgia jet & Beauregard)

What else should I be growing in this hellish heat?

I'm looking to try my hand at fermenting some pickles this year. If anybody has any information on how to do that, I'd sure appreciate any advice you have.

I planted about 60' of Knuckle Purple Hull peas a while ago, it was dark, and I think I planted them. I will go out in the morning and see how it looks, and maybe have to cover some of the seeds.

I need to bring in some mulch, my soil is drying out very badly. There is a lot of lose hay lying in the pasture that the hay baler missed. I know that the hay will have all kinds of weed seeds in it, but maybe I can pick the best of and drag it to the house. I have one row that I want to try planting peas in the centers and see how that works, sort of a living mulch and green manure crop combined. By planting peas between my rows, I may just be building as Aphid factory.

Josh, I prefer to ferment cucumbers in my crock. They go fast in the summer because it's so warm, unless you keep your house super cool. Our AC isn't so great so our house is usually around 74 or 75 and maybe even warmer at times.

ANYWAY, I like to ferment Persian cukes. But regardless of the variety, pick them small.

Here's the basic recipe I use.

About 10 cukes

1 TBSP of chopped garlic and 1 TBSP of peppercorns

4 bay leaves

2 dill fronds

2 tsp of organic black tea leaves (the tannins help make the pickles crunchy)

The brine is roughly 2 tbsp of salt to 4 cups of water.

The brine will be cloudy. Also, I use weights in my crock. Check it every day, because it will go so fast in the summer. If you get mold, just skim it off. There's something called brewer's yeast too, that is harmless.

You can also use Mason jars. I like the wide mouth ones. I suggest investing in pickle pipes and glass weights. There's other things you can use if you're on a tight budget, but those items aren't expensive and you'll use them a lot.

I prefer kraut in the jars and pickles in the crock.

The pickles will be ready in 4 or 5 days really. If they're in jars, just remove the weights and pipes and put in the refrigerator. If they're in a crock put them in a container to store in the refrigerator and pour the brine over them.

I think that's all to it. I'm tired and it's late so hopefully didn't skip a steps.

It's not Brewer's yeast. LOL. I just used that on some lactation cookies I made for my daughter. It's Kahm yeast.

Larry, 100% same over here. Soil has really big cracks in it. Whoever has been watching over me this year is probably laughing their asses off. They got to see me slinging pine bark mulch thinking I was really gonna have a good smelling/looking garden and keep the moisture in. What they really got to see is most of the mulch I spread out over this 1200 sq ft. plot get washed away with a lot of amended soil. At least 3 times over.

My mulch lesson for this year: Straw is about the only thing that is gonna work here. It sticks so much better and if bedded in, will not blow away. The downside: Unintentionally growing wheat. So, I think the plan of action going forward will be to weather straw bales the season before. Just need to find someplace to keeps the snakes from using them as a house.

So, I don't need more green beans, because the SG has many and I still have a couple of gallons to do something with. Blessing for sure.

BUT, after I pulled the lettuce and other greens from the Greenstalk, I thought it would be interesting to see if bush beans would grow well in a Greenstalk. I saw a video about this awhile back. We have tiny beans!

I'll come back with a picture in a minute. (It's on my phone and I'm on the laptop.)

This is so good to know. You know, in case someone, including me someday, doesn't have a large growing space to garden. If I recall, the woman in the video got enough to eat fresh but to also can maybe 12 jars. Not too shabby for a vertical planter.

BUT, the radishes look awful. (Yes, it's too hot for them anyways.) E's eagle eye saw that the radishes were covered with fuzzy green caterpillars.

Anyway...just sharing the good news with anyone who container gardens or who might someday.

Also, Larry, I saw bloom buds on the passion vine.

Jennifer that looks great. I am struggling so much with grasshoppers that I have planted my beans three times. I have a couple of green bean varieties soaking and hope that the insect netting doesn’t come loose this time. It is so very frustrating to garden under these conditions. I was out of town for eight days so I’m really surprised everything is flourishing as well as it is. However most of what is really doing well is the stuff I don’t eat like tomatoes and peppers. I am going to pick wild Cucamelons today. I should have enough to ferment a quart jar of those. HWY 20 I do a lot of fermenting and I usually just get a recipe for the salt brine off of the Internet. And then I’ll add whatever I want to. One of the three last formants I did turn the sour and let me tell you you can tell the difference between a good ferment and a bad ferment. I do not know what happened all three had the same salt brine. I like to add dill onion and garlic. Those are my favorite. And I add those to cucumbers carrots beets whatever I have on hand. Early in the season I kept pulling up the wild cucumber vines. And then I realized that was so silly because I am trying to roll food here and they produce food so why not let them take over the world. If they turn out good my grandson will be very impressed. I took a vacation to San Antonio and although it was a precious time with my grandsons and granddaughter it was very hard on me physically. I’ve been resting and doing very little. Today I got to get going. Larry I have an excellent garden scooter. It was about $70 but worth every penny. I’ll try to find a picture.

Jennifer, I am glad the passion vine is growing for you. I couldn't help but to think of you this morning as I was driving over the place looking for busted hay bales or hay that was missed with the baler. I was looking in spots that the baler could not get into. I did not notice any passion vines, but I did notice some Sassafras, which I thought had died out years ago.

I found plenty of lose hay that I can round up for mulch.

hwy20, the best mulch that I have ever used was shavings. A fellow about 8 or 10 miles south of me use to have an old single mill that he used to cut shims for the coal mines, he would let me come over and clean out all the shavings that I wanted, and I hauled many loads each year. The mill is gone now, and the owner may be dead, the last I heard was that he had cancer. The shavings were a rip cut, so they were long and curly, so they would not pack, they stayed in place very well, and water and air could pass through, and there were no seeds of any kind.

Creeping cucumbers. They grow wild here

Been absent for a few weeks, trying to finish prep for preteen camp next week. Nothing like cramming right before the big test, right? And now that I'm running out of time, I'm scrambling to figure out how to keep everything watered enough to survive. Think I'll go out Sat and water everything in well; hope it gets by until Wed when I get back. And I have some old bottles I use for slow waterers so I'll likely dig those out to hopefully keep them going.

Garden is still meh, though I'm beginning to get a few tomatoes. I planted all micros, so not huge yields but enough to keep me munching.

We lost our kitty Monday; Cliff's cat, he got him a year or so before we got together. Poor thing hasn't been doing well, so it was time. But I planted a hibiscus over him and now I'm begging the thing to stay alive. A June heat wave is NOT the ideal time for planting bushes.

HJ, I'm sorry to hear about the turnpike. That stinks!

When I'm searching something, if I want factual info, I add ".edu" or "extension office" to the search bar. Usually then it picks up the various extension offices around the country (like OSU here for us).

Fermented pickles: I've made some similar to fermented onions, but they turned out too salty for my taste. My basic recipe is to cover with salt and let soak for 30-60 minutes, then pack in jars and fill with vinegar and water. Let sit for a couple weeks, burp daily, and taste to see when they're done. I also tried making some with vinegar, water, and some of that Mrs Wages pickle seasoning stuff. They tasted good to me.

Kim, is the creeping cucumber better than the regular cucumber? I have one cucumber plant that is producing pretty well, but all seem to be slowing down, the heat and lack of water may be the reason for the slow down.

I went out to check the peas that i planted very late last evening, they looked just like peas planted in the dark, but I tried to fix them the best I could. I should have waited till this morning to plant them.

This has been a pretty good day temperature wise, but I still did not get a lot done.

Kim, what do the creeping cucumbers taste like? Cucumbers?

They are tiny. That would be fun to can or ferment. I tried to like the West Indian Gherkins but could never really enjoy them. AND you had to get them very small or they were bitter.

I spent a little time tidying up around the columnar apple trees and the blackberry bushes last night and weeded one of the little herb beds. It's sort of a loner bed--I made the bed years ago after our first little coop sat on that area. It's breaking down and the Bermuda is creeping in. There's only 3 perennial things in the bed--the older mallow from Kim, a bearded tongue and wild bergamot. It's become a place for the overflow of herbs that I start and have too many....and those herbs reseed. Oh, there's also a valerian that I planted last year, but I'll probably dig it up to make medicine this fall.

ANYWAY, I might just take the bed apart and do a circle bed around those 3 perennial things I want to keep.

Jennifer, I got to do some clean up also. It was a nice morning for working in the garden, it just now hit 90 degrees, but it was cooler while I was working. Here is a picture of the north garden, it is the smallest I have, but so far the north and south garden is all I have planted, and the women in my life tell me that I don't need to plant anything else.

If you notice the grass is creeping in from the right. I plan on mixing some Glyphosate and reclaiming the right side of the garden.

This is a rig I will use when I start mulching the garden. I will have to repair it first. A few weeks ago I was trying to mow the lawn very quickly because It started raining about the time I started mowing. I had our zero turn running at full speed, and I slid on the wet grass, and ran over the tow rope on this 4' x 12' piece of conveyor belt, the rope is scattered over a large area now. I can haul more mulch on the conveyor belt than I can carry in the bucket on a tractor, and I can drag it into tight spaces with the RTV or zero turn.

They have a cucumber-ish flavor, but to me they don't really taste like cucumber. And the seed to flesh ratio is off, so if you have texture issues they may not be good. But I pickled a bunch one year and they turned out to be pretty good. Nice to have when I don't have cucumbers, and they make an excellent groundcover.

I think they are milder than regular cucumbers. I am going to pickle mine

I don't know anything about the creeping cucumber, but my cucumbers are playing games with me. I try to watch them closely because I know they mature fast, but I picked mine late yesterday, and brought in a shirttail full, even leaving 4 out in the garden because I was afraid Madge would think that they were watermelons. This morning I went out and picked more, I looked at those cucumbers last night and thought they were too small, then this morning I checked them and thought that I had better harvest them before they get too large.

I even pulled some carrots this morning. I know that this is not carrot weather, but I did not get my carrots up on time, and, as long as I can eat them I will keep harvesting them, then prep the ground for something else.

The tomatoes I have in containers seem to have stopped growing, I am thinking that I had seen on a You-Tube video that when the tomato roots got to 85 degrees they would stop growing, have any of y'all got a comment on that?

I don’t know about growing but my Porter are cranking out tomatoes. The others have slowed down or stopped. Cucumbers are tricky. I wish they were purple or white lol so I could see them. Sometimes I don’t see them until they are yellow. Much too late. I use those for my seed.

Larry, Nancy got hacked on Facebook. I noticed you accepted the friend request from the hacker. The hacker has her name and at the end the letters AT. She has a second account that ends in ART. It is ok, don't block that one. Profile uses a pic of her and Garry. You should block that account on Facebook so he doesn't hack you or your friends.

What varieties of tomato do you have planted in containers? Tomatoes do kind of go dormant when they're hot. I don't know at what root temp they would stop growing, but 85⁰ sounds reasonable.

XOXO

Amy, thanks, It's nice to have a wizard friend like you. I will see if I can figure out how to block her. I think that getting hacked may be happening a lot. I have received friend request from others over the past few months, but most of them I rejected because knew i was already friends with them.

I have a Bush Beefsteak tomato in one feed tub, and (2) each of Fred's Tie Dye, and/or, Dwarf Sweet Sue in (3) other feed tubs. The Bush Beefsteak seems to be doing the best, but the others still look good, but want to rest.

I have been sorting out garlic and onions for seed to replant this fall. I am trying to learn something that I should have learned 70 years ago, but, I had more important things than onion, and garlic on my mind back then.

Looked at the 10-day...not a drop of rain in sight. Most of those days were not even partly cloudy. I have a feeling the water bill is going to be getting expensive. Some really hot and humid days coming.

We harvested garlic a couple of weeks back and only got a few that made individual cloves. The rest were just garlic baseballs. I'm thinking it may be a good idea to get those things in the ground in the fall sometime and let them overwinter. Problem is that I'm usually not even on the lookout for stuff like that then. We are usually buttoned up with a cover crop filling in by that time of the year.

I went out to the south garden to get a picture of Madge's odd tomato plant. What the tomato plant lacks in quality, it makes up for in quantity. The plant is at least 7' tall, and so far, none of the tomatoes we have harvested have been split, but they sure are not as sweet as Sungold, or Sweet 100's.

While out at the garden I decided check for fruit. I harvested last night, and the veggies are still in the sink. I could have picked more veggies, but my shirt tail was full.

I also sorted out some onions and garlic to replant by fall. I still have more to go through, but I have already sorted out more than I will need. Some of the small sets, or cloves may be planted early to save them.

Hwy20, what type of garlic did you plant? When I plant Elephant garlic corms, I get first year balls. I don't remember planting any regular garlic as late as you may have, I guess that they could go from a clove to a ball, then split back into cloves again, but I have never seen it in my garden.

Your produce looks so good, Larry. My cucumbers are just now getting blossoms.

My plan for tomorrow is to clean up my garlic that's been curing in the shop and maybe pickle some pepperoncini.

But, my daughter has an infection--fever and chills. It's something that happens sometimes to new mothers. So, I will go help her with the baby in the afternoon when her husband needs to leave for a few hours. He's a good daddy and is staying up with the baby if needed tonight so she can sleep. He did the same last night. She's on antibiotics so hopefully will feel better soon.

Things like this make me wish I was closer to her...and them.

I can probably get some of the garlic and pepperoncini tasks done, though.

And clean up Ethan's room. He was kind and put all their towels in the washer and stripped the bed.

It's all washed now and I just need to remake the bed. Although, the next time he comes will be at Christmas and I'll put the Christmas sheets on the bed. SO, maybe I should just put those on now--the Christmas sheets.

I'm just incredibly sad. It's not getting easier with him living so far away, it's getting harder. At first, it was just like we were dropping him off for one of his visits. But, it's real now. He had a real job. Something has happened in his life that could bring him back to Oklahoma, but he's staying because the situation he's in is very good as far as job/career goes. His "boss" has asked him to stay and not drop out. He got in so early and so quick...and much younger than most others. Anyway...I want him to stay too. BUT, it's incredibly difficult. I miss him so much.

I made the right call WAY back in November and December of last year. I knew I would not be canning much. It's difficult because the tomatoes in the SG are producing well--like they did last year. We have gallons of them coming in. Like last year. The difference is I had tomatoes all over my counters and kitchen table last year. As soon as they were fully ripe, I would can them. I did many small batches all summer. That little canner was going almost every day-diced tomatoes, jelly, and pickles. I knew back in November and December that I would not have time to deal with all of that this summer. I'm staying firm on that. Because I just don't have time for it all. I've set back tomatoes for friends and family and myself, but Rick is taking the rest to his house. It's either that, or they'll rot at my house. I knew we would be going to Arkansas, I knew Ethan would be visiting. I knew I would have a grandchild and would need to be "on call" for my daughter. Pllus, I still work outside the home.

Anyway, we have plenty of jelly, diced tomatoes and pickles from last year. If I have time this year, I want to focus on the peppers--making pepper sauces.

Josh, it's depressing when it gets this dry and hot. Our ground is cracking already.

My suggestion is try to find a place to plant the garlic in October or November. Order your garlic and then save back a few bulbs/cloves for the following years. They get better each year as they adapt to your growing conditions.

Josh, I bought garlic at Twin City Produce in Ft. Smith. I have know Idea what kind it is, but it looked good, so I bought it. I think that the Ft. Smith Farmers Co-op had garlic last fall, but had sold out before I was able to buy any. The garlic that I planted produced well, I have 155 heads hanging in the shop, and I have some Elephant garlic hanging in the garden, and I have more garlic to sort on the back porch.

Most of what I do now is try to teach the kids how to grow food. The kids like garlic, peppers, and tomatoes, they are growing their own this year, even trying some sweet potatoes. but they can not grow what they need, so I planted extra, The kids harvest when they come over. The kid's plants are not producing yet, even though they are the same plants I have, but I have had longer to improve my soil, plus I don't work a full time job, and can take better care of my plants.

Madge and her sister will be going to south Arkansas tomorrow for a church reunion, and I am sure Madge will be taking a good supply of produce to share with friends.

Jennifer, helping family is an important part of life. I wish my family was not so messed up, I would like to spend more time with them, but it just has not worked out. My oldest daughter looks after Madge and me, but she and her two daughters are the only ones we can count on.

Larry, I'm glad you have Emmy (?) and her daughters in your life. They're really special.

I'm pretty bonded to my kids. I wish we all lived closer, tho.

E got in last "night" around 1:30. He texted me when the Uber dropped him off to his apartment. Of course, it was nearly 4 am here when he messaged me. They're 2 hours behind us.

Just 24 hours ago we were sitting here watching The Twilight Zone.

I picked some pepperoncini this morning and pickled them. I hope they taste like the ones that Tom likes from the store.

I noticed that the Sugar Rush Peach fruit is beginning to "peach" up. I'm thinking pepper sauce and salsa with those. Maybe a spicy and sweet pepper/peach BBQ sauce. When are peaches in season?

I'm about to head out to the shop and clean up my garlic for storage. I'll try to post a link here to a short video on storing garlic.

Josh, I ordered Inchelium garlic and have saved back the best to replant in the fall. It's on it's 3rd year in our garden. It's the one that is doing the best out of the 3 varieties that I have. It stores pretty well too.

Last year, I knew I had waited to long to harvest it and the cloves were TOO defined. That's a no-no for storage. Luckily I had a few "just right" ones to save. There's that balance of no defined cloves and too defined cloves.

We were moving E to Oregon and I just put it off too long.

Honestly, I might have pulled the other varieties this year a bit too early..

Oh well.

I originally ordered the Inchelium from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange.

Jennifer, I tried braiding garlic stems, boy, did I make a mess of that. I think I understand why my daughters did not want me braiding their pigtails.

My haul for this morning. I want to clear out some space to plant some peppers and tomatoes. I opened up an 8 or 10 foot strip of walking onions under a trellis to plant a couple of tomatoes or maybe 3 peppers. The carrots were harvested because it is getting too hot for carrots, and I wanted the tops for mulch anyway.

I also went south of out house and raked some hay to be drug to the garden for mulch.

My carrots were planted too late. I was having trouble getting carrots to germinate, till Amy and Kim told me to cover the soil to keep it from drying out. I wound up with carrots planted much to thick, but they did fair considering they were just packed together. I suppose I will just rework the carrot bed and mulch it because I don't know of anything I can plant and have it harvested by fall carrot planting time. Those carrots came from an 18" x 60" bed, not large enough to be of much value as far as planting room.

I have no clue as to what variety of garlic it was. They were in a paper sack that just said "garlic", hahaha. They were stocked in very early spring, so I'm assuming they were a softneck? The way I understood it was that they needed to stratify and sometimes early spring is cold enough to do it, but I guess most of ours didn't actually stratify. Still lots to learn about garlic. This fall, I'll make a little rectangle area for them and clover cover everywhere else. We'll see how that does instead of planting in early spring.

We've got a sprinkler head throwing water on the garden, but it's not going to be enough if we don't get any rain soon. I don't think we've had a drop in June. Not sure I remember the drought coming on so early. Maybe we'll get one of those weird July/August cool downs with a rainy streak.

Oh...pickle fermentation trial #1 has begun. I've got a bucket in a cooler with a glass bowl weighting the cucumbers down. Used some dill & garlic with pepper flakes in the brine. Just a couple handfuls of ice in the cooler every now and again. Thermometer shows a low of 65 and a high of 71 in a 24 hr period. We're 2 days in, so we'll see how it goes.