Huggin' the Earth : Home Again Home Again Jiggity Jig

We are back from our final trip of the summer and the gardens are great--thanks Kathy for all your help! We got a few plants while we were away for a cut garden.

The Summer Garden is flourishing. Yesterday, I went over and did some watering. While I was there, I picked a half a bushel (that's right a half a bushel) of cucumbers-Marketmore, National Pickling, and Silver Slicers. I love Silver Slicers-they are great tasting, excellent producers, and easy to find on the vines. If you have ever tried to find green cucumbers in a bunch of vines, you know what I mean. Stephanie and I are going to can some bread and butter pickles with a twist and some half/halfs. I also picked a half a bushel of Rattlesnake Beans-one more pick and they should be done for the season. These we will freeze for chili this winter. The Jacob's Cattle beans are done for the year. The Kentucky Wonder Pole Beans are coming on and we should get our first pick in the next 7-10 days. We have several Sivan F1 Hybrid Melons coming on. One was off the vine so I brought it home. The smell was wonderful and it was very pretty on the inside but not quite ripe enough to be sweet. There are some pics below. The Sivan is a single serving melon about the size of a softball. We have our first 2 Hale's Best Melons. These are going to be big cantaloupes. I picked a few Bangles Mix Mini Bells. They are cute and colorful but small. We have a bunch of tomatoes coming on. Corn is doing well. And now for the big news. Okra is finally coming and there is A LOT of it. Burgundy and Clemson Spineless have hundreds of pods just starting. We will have bushels by the end of the season. I fertilized all the melons, tomatoes, and peppers yesterday with Garden Tone. I almost forgot, we have blooms on the Black Beauty Eggplant-they got a shot of Garden Tone and a good weeding.

Now the Home Garden-Stephanie, Magun, and I picked 2 zucchini.-one was average and one was the size of my arm from the elbow down. It was huge. Magun calls it a baseball bat. Stef is going to make zucchini-blueberry bread. We picked a few cucumbers and our first tomato from the raised garden. The tomatoes here are huge plants but not producing. I used Garden Tone to add more potash and phosphate and now they have a lot of small fruits. Thanks Garden Tone-you did the trick. If you are looking for a good organic fertilizer-Garden Tone is great. We have 2 big California Bells almost ready to pick. There is a small Blacktail Mountain Watermelon at Home and should be some good eatin' very soon.

We are planning to add a completely self-sustaining Urban Garden on another plot for next year. It will be irrigated by a rainwater collection system powered by solar energy-the produce will be given to the community around the garden. Check out our Kickstarter to see more about it and join us if you wish.

So Melons, Cukes, Beans, Zoo-chee-knee (shout out to Suzanne)-summer is in full swing.