I put up 28 quarts of green beans with red potatoes today. That still left us with about 10 quarts not canned to eat fresh over the next few days. I think I am going to cook some with garlic and onions to can. There will be some more to pick in a couple of days. We have pulled all our onions. We came out with about 75 lbs. (I think). Potatoes are doing good. We planted peanuts(my dd 13's official nickname is now Peanut - she planted all 3-100 ft rows and did an EXCELLENT job!!), tomatoes, cantelope, squash-yellow, butternut and spaghetti, cucumbers(for bread and butter pickles), watermelon, pumpkin, jalapenoes, green bell peppers, corn(Kandy corn and Dent-for feed), bush beans and pole beans, GOSH - is that it? Anyway, we planted because we needed to seriously supplement our groceries. We have done it before, but I am now giving it the best try ever. We are eating healthier and feel good about supplying our own veges. I also have a great recipe for pear preserves if anyone out there does those. We will be picking blueberries soon too. Our land has been paid for for a long time now and I want my children to be able to provide for themselves if they have hard times in the future. This land is something we will give them and I hope they can rely on themselves too. Anybody else have a garden going? I know here we probably get things earlier than a lot of the country, but what do you have growing? Anything that your family likes in particular?
Wow, your garden sounds impressive! I would love to have a lot of space to really plant and enjoy the bounty! I do have a small garden, although my plants are a long ways from harvest. We can't put anything in the ground until after Memorial Day because of frost. I planted peas, watermelon, cantaloupe, honeydew, snow peas, green beans, asparagus, lemon cukes and green cukes, zucchini, yellow squash, giant pumpkins, (at least the package says they will be giant!),tomatoes, peppers, lettuce and spinach. I don't have a lot of space, so I have to cram everything in, but it's fun and the kids enjoy eating what we've grown.
WOW!!! I do beans, tomatoes, and peas. Oh, and a little lettuce. But it's a very small plot. Can you post how you can your beans and red potatoes please?
We have no room for a real garden but Freddy and I both would love to have one. So we plant things anywhere we can make some room. We have peas, pole beans, tomatoes, cucumbers and squash growning and a pumpkin vine came up on it's own. It is lots of fun watching everything grow. We have lots of flowers too.
Wow impressive indeed! We don't have the space for a garden like that here. I have a small herb garden and dh has some onion, tomatoes and corn growing as well. We actually just discussed this last night. We pan to turn our whole side yard by the kitchen window into a garden next year. It won't be huge but it will be bigger than what we have now. Dh is going to start working on building the frame for my compost pile today! We are just using chicken wire.
Sabrina - very impressive! I have a garden, but nothing compared to yours! If you don't mind, I have a potato question - this is only my second spring (so, beginning my 2nd year of gardening here), and it's my second year with no potatoes. Last year I planted too later, got great foliage, but no blooms and no tubers. This year, I planted "on time" according to the paper and local nursery. They were very slow to start, and now have either died off or are growing leaves and vines like gangbusters - but still no tubers. Any thoughts?
Wow nice Garden. I have a pretty large one too. I have tomatoes(35plants), tomatillos, lots of peppers, onions, snow peas, spinich, head lettuce, leaf lettuce, chinese cabbage, carrots, cucumbers, zuccinni, sweet potatoes, potatoes, green beans and sweet corn.... I think that is it. I have only got to pick some leaf lettuce. We have a later growing season too. I hope that our garden is blessed with much harvest to can, freeze and share. My problem is the grass that keeps coming up. Wow a big garden means lots of weeds.
that sounds like a good garden, we live by the ocean and have no dirt or land to plant... how about selling some it to your Texas buddies, where do you leave close by me... LOL anyway that is great...
Sounds like some good stuff there, Sabrina! Where in TX do you live? I'm in East TX. I have a medium sized garden. I'm learning as I go! This is my 4th or 5th yr. and it keeps getting bigger! This time I have: spaghetti squash, yellow squash, one sweet potato vine, onions, corn, golden honeydew, pumpkin, carrots, kohlrabi, cucumbers, tomatoes, peas. And mixed inbetween various herbs and flowers (sunflowers and marigolds). Having a garden makes me feel great...even if it doesn't make much! But I HOPE it will! M4Girls - I'd like to plant tomatillo - does it basically need the same things as tomatoes?
We have small garden, I have planted everything very close so we could shove a ton in there. We have yellow squash, pole beans, corn, okra, tomatoes, bell peppers, parlsey ( a ton of it too) dill, sweet basil, lemon basil, lettuce, radishes, butternut squash, watermelon, pickling cukes, reg cukes, kholrabi, carrots and I think that is it. We have onions, garlic, rosemary, chives in another bed. We also will plant pumpkins on July 4th becasue that is what somebody told me to do to get them in oct. LOL I would love to have more garden space. We live on a rock pile. So we have to have raised beds and that limits my gardening, or else we would just plow up the front yard and plant in it. So far we have had several tomatoes, and a meals worth of green beans. We have a ton of lettuce so we use that for all of our salads. I will plant more stuff in the fall, last year my fall garden did wonderful. That is where the parsley and Kholrabi, and radishes came from.
Tiffany - http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/plantanswers/fallgarden/fallindex.html has some good information on when to plant in Texas. We do a decent size garden, in another month I'll be saying it's a huge garden and why did I ever plant so much! We have onions, lettuce, cabbage, red potatoes, peppers, okra, yellow squash, zucchini, cucumbers, watermelon, cantaloupe, tomatoes, pumpkin, green beans, pinto beans, purple hull peas, cream peas, and black eyed peas.
Like many others, ours is also pretty small. I have 2 jalepeno's, 2 red peppers, beans, pea pods, tomatoes, cherry tomatoes, zucchini, cucumbers, corn, and a strawberry bush. It's in a very small area and there is only 1 of each plant aside from the peppers and corn. We get a bit, but this is only our second year growing so we are still learning a bit. The pea pods and beans I have in containers on the porch, which has helped save room. Tanner also planted a pumpkin seed that sprouted. It is too early for harvest here. Not until the middle of summer/August will we have anything to pluck.
Lisa - sounds like you will have a lot too! Garden - I am 25 miles from Tyler and Athens and Jacksonville, right in the middle next to Lake Palestine. My canning of the green beans was my first time to mix with the red potatoes so I hope I pressure cooked them long enough. I did it according to the old Ball Blue Book. I did qts. Only 1 did not seal. I always put my jars through the dishwasher to make sure they get hot and clean. Fill jars of clean, snapped beans with boiling water. Put on your lids, after you put your jars in the pressure canner and put the lid on let the steam escape for 10 minutes and then put on your weight and pressure cook them for 25 minutes at 10 lbs. We added 3-4 potatoes per jar. Someone told me the red potatoes skin will come off and float in the water, but it really doesn't matter to me so I left the skins on. I cooked the potatoes for 10 minutes first and the green beans I put in raw. I've decided one of my favorite sounds is the tops popping. The weeds do get to be a problem in a big garden. My ds16 puts the tiller between the rows when we need him too and dh goes in with the weed eater where needed. I like to just pull them and I usually get to go next to the plants. I also do this when I am picking. Dh made a portable pump to put in the creek just below the garden. He is keeping it watered! The squash is fixing to just explode. There are so many blooms! I forgot zucchini on my list, I love to make bread! I decided to put gardens this year in the front yard next to the front of the house. We have the tomatoes in the front yard, some on both sides. Sweet 100's on one side and Early Girl and Better Boy on the other. We have about 2.5 acres where the house plot is and I figured it was less to have to mow. I love flowers. I only plant things that will come back every year. Usually it is things people have given me. I love to share. I have a huge plot of 4 o'clocks. Lots of Daylilies, roses, iris, oxalis, nandina, azaleas, monkey grass, wisteria, cannas(huge cannas), etc. I had started college for Landscape Design, never finished, but it is something I really enjoy. About the potatoes, what kind are you planting? You are probably in a good area. They like really loose soil. I grew up in Garland. The soil there would probably not be good - we had that black gumbo. My mom tells me she did really good with carrots there. My winter garden was lettuce, spinach and greens. They are gone now, because it gets warm here quick. I love the Black Seeded Simpson Lettuce. I need to learn broccoli, carrots and brussel sprouts better - mine were pitiful! We have such warm winters here. Whew! Think I'll stop now.... Dh went fishing and I am going to go fold clothes.
Tiffany - I plant my lettuce and spinach usually in January and I try to make it in a place with a little protection, some shade so if a frost comes it is kind of under the trees. Still gets sun though most of the morning and some evening. Black Seeded Simpson lettuce is easy to grow, but don't pick it until right til you want to eat it. If you need to pick it early, wash it and then put in a bowl with an inch or so of water in the bottom. I gets wilty even in the fridge. I put mine in my spinner and leave it in it in the fridge. Spinach does great too. I don't know about tomatillos. There are other things I want to try, but I am always learning. We are constantly making things better. We have pretty much figured out our watering system. We bought a lot(!) of 1/2 inch pvc with holes in it at an auction many years ago and have now figured out that it put across the top of the row with a hook up at the end waters the tomatoes perfect and easily. We also made a really long one we can move for the big garden. We saved that stuff for years and have just now figured out what it was good for.
Sabrina, Ohio Mom invited me to her house two years ago and taught me how to can beans. Everyone has always told me how easy it was, but no one would actually SHOW me what to do. Last year, I did it BY MYSELF!!! And it actually WORKED!!! So you just can your beans normally, but add a few potatoes to it...? My problem is that I don't have a canner big enough to do quarts, only pints.
Sabrina, last year I planted some seed potatoes from the local nursery. This year the same, but I also planted some spuds from Target that just wouldn't stop sprouting in the pantry. The Target potato plants grew much sooner, but they're already dead. The seed potato plants are still growing - even after I weed-wacked one (the time for harvest is supposedly past), it has grown back. It sounds as if you're a little south of me. I wouldn't put lettuce out in Jan - I'd get lettuce-cicles. We grew broccoli (nice) and cabbage (fabulous) last winter - I planted in Oct. We also planted garlic (which I am watching and waiting to harvest...I'm thinking maybe another 3-6 weeks...).
The canning - I forgot - I added 1 tsp of salt before I poured in the hot water. My recipe said optional though.
Oh, I messed up and didn't put salt in one jar. OHHH!!! Don't want to make THAT mistake again!!! OhioMom, who taught me, lives up in the Canton area, too!!! (Only it's Canton, Ohio!)
