Monday, July 26th. 
I haven't posted in a while, but the garden is slowing down, as expected.  My tomatoes have lasted much longer than usual, but they are finally getting the blight, plus it has been so hot that I fear none of the blooms are going to make fruit.  I pulled several tomato plants out this morning, making way for my Fall plantings.   The last section of corn didn't make it either.  The wind blew some of it over & before we could get it back up,  my son's hybrid wolf decided it would make a nice cool bed & trampled & dug the rest of it up.  He won't stay inside the fence, so I don't know what we are going to do. 

The Emerald Giant bell pepper, pepperoncini, Hungarian hot yellow & jalapeno peppers are coming in now.  The Hungarian hot is really long and definitely hot.  We picked a few green for canning, but will let the others ripen to yellow.  The Emerald Giants are very nice.  They are unsuitable for stuffing because of the irregular size, but thick-walled and very good flavor.  We were able to find some regular bell pepper plants at the feed store a few weeks back & they are doing very well, just starting to bloom.  What I don't use for pepper relish I just slice & put in a container in the freezer.  I just take out what I need for baked beans, meatloaf, whatever I need them for. 

I have been planting cucumbers at intervals & planted my last seeds today. They have done  great on the wire trellis, but I now know not to plant them on the same trellis as cantaloupe and delicata squash.  I'll stick to one type of vine to each trellis next year.  It has been so nice having a steady supply of cukes for eating (although DH won't touch them) and I've made lots of pickles:  Bread & Butter, sweet pickle relish, Dill and a very simple recipe from my grandmother.  I will post it below. 

I harvested my one & only Sweet Dumpling (delicata type) squash last week.  The squash borers got the vine & it only had the one fruit, but I will grow it again next year.  I cut it in half, scooped out the seeds & zapped it in the microwave til soft.  Then I sprinkled on brown sugar, cinnamon & a little butter.  It was yummy.

Today I decided to pull 2 of the Honey Boat Delicata.  I wasn't sure how to tell if they were ripe, but when I touched them they fell off, so I guess they were ready.  Growing on the trellis the stem doesn't dry out & the bottom of the melons don't turn yellow.  I have 2 huge cantaloupes that I'm watching closely.  They are supported by a panty hose sling & I'm watching for the color to change.  The webbing has developed, but they are still green, so I guess it will be a while yet.

I can't think of anything else right now, but I hope you are getting lots of yummies out of your garden.

Here are a few pics from today:

I've been quite proud of myself for posting on here as often as I do.  There are so many blogs that I admire & I hope mine gets better.

The tomatoes are really starting to come in, soon will be able to can some of them.  I usually can stewed tomatoes with bell pepper, celery & onion with sugar.  We use a lot of these in homemade salsa.  I've tried to can salsa using different recipes, but we just don't care for the taste.

I have placed a second order with Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds at Rare Seeds.  I ordered the following for Fall planting:

• Chinese Pak Choy
• Long Island Improved Brussels Sprouts
• Perfection Savoy Drumhead Cabbage  
• Jaune Obtuse du Doubs Carrot
• Giant Musselburgh Leek
• Rocky Top Lettuce Mix
• Red Wing Lettuce Mix 
• Honey Boat Delicata Squash
• Muscade Carrot 
• Cilantro, Slo-Bolt
• Dill, elephant

 and the following for next year:

• Yellow Monster Pepper 
• Orangeglo Watermelon

I'm a big fan of Baker Creek, their prices are fair, packet size is generous, they have a good selection and best of all $3.00 flat rate shipping.

On the official Square Foot Gardening site forum the topic of supplemental fertilizing came up.  I have used manure tea for a long time.  I place it in the leg of an old pantyhose to contain all of the solid matter & put it in a 5 gallon bucket, then fill with water & let it set for a day.  I use a brass siphon hose mixer.  It's the neatest little gadget.  You place it on your water spigot, then connect the water hose to the end of it, place the siphon tube into your bucket of liquid fertilizer & as you water it automatically siphons & mixes the fertilizer. First pictures is from Hozon and the second is from Growers Solution.

 

Orange banana tomatoes

I harvested 4 Orange Banana tomatoes last night.  This is my first year to grow these & they are a "keeper".  They have a very sweet taste, the core is small & they are decent sized.  I'm not sure why they cracked.  The soil moisture has been even & usually I only get cracking when it rains after a long dry spell, but I have been watering my beds.  I got my seeds from Baker Creek Heirlooms, one of my favorites.  UPDATE:  This tomato has a really good flavor & fruit size is decent, but probably 1/4 of the tomatoes had blossom end rot.  None of my other tomato varieties had a problem with this, so it may be a trait common to this particular one.  I don't plan on growing it again next year.

Today's harvest, plus apple butter!

Yesterday we harvested our first corn of the season, Peaches & Cream, and it was so delicious.  I couldn't take time for any pictures, but today I thought I'd share a few pics.  Here are 2 German Pink tomatoes and some cucumbers that I picked when getting the corn.

These are the first "good tomatoes" I've had.  The others have been huge & beautiful until you pull them & realize they are rotten on the bottom, totally unusable.  Also, it has been so hot that some of the tomatoes on the upper portion of the plants have gotten sunburned.  I'll just have to wait & see how they make it by the time they get ripe.  Everything is growing really well and I'm a SFG convert for life.

 

SOME THINGS I HAVE LEARNED WITH MY FIRST SQUARE FOOT GARDEN: 
Don't even think about an early cabbage crop. Cabbage loopers made lace of them. They were so bad I don't think even B.t. would have helped.

Don't plant carrots in adjacent squares around squash. They were too shaded and foilage rotted.

Heirloom tomatoes grow REALLY tall. Buy taller fence posts for staking next year. I thought about topping some of them, but I just couldn't cut off all those blooms. So far they are gracefully curving back toward the ground, I don't think they will break when the fruit gets larger.

My cucumber trellises are 6' high. Cukes are 12+ feet long. They have grown up the trellis, across the top, back down & out into the path. They will get trimmed tonight. But I've made a bunch of pickles.

Roma bush beans are more like a half-runner bean, at least in the Mel's mix. I won't plant them as close next year. The center ones didn't get enough sun & didn't produce much.

Don't alternate squares with tomato/pepper/tomato..... I'll leave one blank square between each tomato & plant peppers side by side in another section.

I love not having to weed. Even with composted manure from a dairy, I have had very few weeds & it's wonderful.

I'll put in a drip irrigation system before next season. It has been horribly hot here & I have to water daily & with the plants so big it does take a while to get it all finished.

I planted one entire 4 x 12 bed with October beans (a dried bean, aka Horticultural bean) that you plant & leave all season til they dry up before picking. Now I've thought of so many other things I would like to have put there & it seems such a waste of space. I'll just buy them from the grocery store next year.

Plant cilantro every other week. Even with cutting daily it still bolted.

I'll never go back to row gardening.

The forum at Square Foot Gardening is addictive & I love it.  I have learned so much from the friendly folks there.

I planted 4 x 4 squares of corn - I will stake/tie the area when they are about shoulder high so the wind won't blow them over when it storms.

APPLE BUTTER
DH has been out of homemade apple butter for a while, so I thought I would be extra nice (especially since I'm begging him to build me a chicken tractor).   I never use fresh apples any more because it is so time-consuming - I use unsweetened applesauce from the grocery store and my crockpot.

I don't have an official recipe, but I put two of the 50 oz jars of unsweetened applesauce in my large crock pot, add sugar & spices. I only use cinnamon and allspice and we like it spicy. ( I don't measure mine, I just dump in a lot of sugar, add spices and a little bit of lemon juice, then check occasionally and add more sugar & spices if I think it is needed.)   I put my crockpot on high, leave it uncovered  & stir occasionally.  I occasionally taste & adjust spices & sugar. If it hasn't cooked down enough by bedtime I turn it on low, then the next morning turn it back up on high until it has cooked down quite a bit.  To test for doneness I put a spoonful on a saucer & cool to see if it is thick enough.   This year I added a bit too much sugar & had to add another jar of applesauce & adjust from that, but I ended up with 8 pints & it sure is good.

Now, back to pestering for my chicken tractor.

Speaking of chickens, I only lost 1 of the 20 chicks I posted about earlier this Spring and out of the 19 it looks like I only have 4 roosters.  I already had 2 black sex link hens & 5 red comet laying hens when I got my 20 chicks. 3 weeks ago I noticed one of the black hens going broody, so I went ahead & marked 8 eggs & let her set.  Then 2 weeks ago the other black sex link went broody too.  A friend from church has regular Americauna's with the cute muffs, so I got a dozen fertile eggs from him & put under the other hen.  Today I heard little "peeps" coming from the first nest & they have started hatching out.  I'll keep you posted on how many chicks I have from that batch.  If I have a good hatch from the dozen Americauna's, I guess I better buy stock in a poultry feed manufacturer.