Hi Anna!

Thank you for thinking about me and the veggie garden. I have been really busy because I am harvesting and putting away veggies to be used later,
Harvesting cucumbers, zucchini, tomatoes, green beans, eggplant, citrus.
I made different pickled eggplants, zucchini, cucumbers, meyer lemon jams with vanilla from Costa Rica. Today I made caponata with everything from the garden: tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant, peppers, herbs and I am also doing hot water baths for the jars to have space in the fridge for other things.
With all the rain that we had pole beans look ratty, I am harvesting and will plant other veggie there.
Planted lettuce, carrots, beets direct seeded and I am transplanting cabbage, cauliflower and kale.

A cucumber trial, I planted Corinto that Amber recommended and like she said they were early and prolific, great for cucumber relish that I made.

Also planted a finger variety, a white one and a Diva and they are all doing well. The finger variety and the white I made cucumber bread and butter pickles.

Here is a view from the back garden, I have winter squash ready for Halloween,lol

And Anna, do you remember asking about the page orange? this is my first year with fruit and the tree is loaded and I got one to sample if it was ready and it is delicious! and very sweet even though was still little bit green.

And the community garden are doing so great! they are all so excited with the harvest, they are picking a lot of veggies and the first tomatoes that were ready were the sungold and they said that it was a burst of flavor! they also did fried green tomatoes with some big heart varieties and said were delicious! squash blossoms were also on their tables, they are truly gourmets there.

Here are some pictures for you to see their progress

I hope your garden and others are doing well also.

Silvia

Silvia, your garden looks great, as always. The community garden looks good too. ;o)

Wow Silvia, a caponata sounds so good. Your garden looks wonderful as always. You do sound busy and I appreciate you took the time to answer and post pictures. I bet the gardeners at the community garden are so grateful for your help and tips. Their garden is not as tidy and beautiful as yours, but looks very prolific and healthy.

Silvia, I am so glad to hear about the page orange! I did plant a small tree and it has one fruit on it! It is just lightening in color, and I don't want to pick it too early. I think I will wait till it colors up. It only gets a half day sun or a little more. My winter squash doesn't have any fruit on it yet. My problem is my yard has too much shade now. The vines are long, but only male flowers have opened. I am waiting, and constantly training the vines!

I am harvesting some Divas and some zucchini. Seems we are having zucchini 3 or 4 times a week for a while now. I also have a few of the ancient sweet peppers still giving and newly giving. My new tomatoes are just starting to set a few fruit. I hope the cold doesn't get them. My broccoli is growing and looking good. Pole beans are slow and just starting to give a very few. Raccoons got my newly sprouted carrots and some lettuce. I will try to get pictures sometime soon, but they won't be very spectacular, I'm afraid. I'm happy though about some successes!

What is your recipe for pickled zucchini or cucumbers, Silvia? Only when you have a minute. No hurry. Thanks so much for posting!

Anna

Hi Kathy - thank you and I hope to see you next time that we have a party, the garden always look different depending on the seasons.

Hi Anna - thank you. I have an update to make, today in the local paper West Orange Times, there is an article about the community gardens, when you go there you can read the story but in the paper you can see more pictures. I only had 5 minutes to get ready since I did not know about it,lol.
And I am so glad that your garden is doing well, mine took a beating on Sunday with the wind, it was worse than the rain.
I got a new canning book recently and I am trying all the new recipes, the family are the testers and so far all the things made are very good.
Anna, next time try the cucumber miniature white from Johnny's they are so tasty and great for salads, pickles or by themselves. I will take some pictures and post them later.

Silvia

Here is a link that might be useful: zucchini bread and butter pickles

Anna,
You sound like your veggie gardening is a success! Yea for you. I hope you will post pics soon, as well as your ornamentals...it's been awhile.
I'm in a rush to get to my tennis game but I hope we can get together sometime.
Hester

Lovely! My fall garden is just getting started, but I do have a few tomotoes on the plants I planted in July! It's very exciting.

Silvia thanks so much for the recipe! I am glad your community garden is getting some publicity. I'm sure many are impressed, and in a large part due to your efforts.

I will look up the cucumber for spring. It's too late now to plant more cucumbers, right?

Hester and Silvia, my garden is doing just ok. I am grateful for anything I get, but I always think it's going to work out better than it does. Right now I'm seeing ants and aphids on the cucumbers and am worried they will get sick soon. Some of the new growing tips are looking like they want to yellow. I'm not sure what to do. Always something!

Hester, my garden is going through rehab/remake in several areas. Not a lot to show that you all haven't see in the past, and not everyone gets as excited about foliage as I do. I will try to get some soon. Hope your tennis match went well.

FLgardenmom, I'm excited about my little ones too. I hope they get ripe before the cold! We'll have to see.

Anna

Sorry to high jack this thread, but I just had to tell you Silvia, I am a great grand mother now. Sylas was born on Mon. His dad, my grand son, is in the Marines in Afgahistan.

Anna, I get excited about foliage, too :)

I have been learning from your past posts and it is wonderful to hear all that you are harvesting. It gives me hope since I had some of your previous issues last year. I'm a little behind you this year since you are further north. But I've got some of the same concerns going on.

Sylvia - The community gardens look amazing! Congrats on all that hard work coming to fruition. The growth in all the plots is dramatic from the last pics we saw. Thanks for posting, I really enjoyed that.

I'm flip flopping on pulling my pole beans out of the plot. They are definitely showing rust from the rains, but they are just setting pods and so I'm agonizing over the whole let em stay and try to get a harvest or pull em out for the sake of the rest of the plot.

Katkin - Congratulations great Gand mother!!

Thanks for sharing everyone,
Chrissy

Looks like you're making garden magic as always Silvia. I'm glad the corinto cukes worked for you. I pulled mine due to a rather large stink bug infestation. The good thing, as you know, is they are very fast to produce from seed. I started a new bunch.

The pictures of the community garden look great too. I'm surprised they're doing so well.

Kathy - Congratulations on the new baby Sylas, you must be so proud! great news!

Anna - For me it is going to be the end of the cucumber season, because it is going to be cold soon. In my zone they do better in Spring. But we are going to have better weather for more crops like peas, lettuce, greens, brassicas, beets and carrots.
When you sow carrots next time, try to put a lightweight row cover, they make those for insects and you can water through, maybe that will discourage the raccoons. When they are a little bit stronger you can take the cover out. One thing that I notice in the community gardens is that they are not having problems with animals like that maybe because they have a lot of trinkets? some of them have t-shirts hanging like a scarecrow. Anyway, just a thought.
And Anna I will be waiting for your posts on foliage or anything that you have, I always learn something new from you and by the way my Queens Wreath is getting tall, such a carefree plant!

Chrissy - Yes, the community gardens are looking great! and they made front page news in the local paper, the article is called from seed to harvest, they are very happy about the heirloom tomatoes, every plant is pumping a lot of fruit!
And I am having similar issues with my beans that is the reason that after harvesting, I am pulling them out, the rains and the wind made a dent on them. Because you are much warmer than me, you can probably start another set of beans and be successful. I will be starting peas on those trellis.
Chrissy, send me your address to my email if you are interested and I can send you small amounts of some varieties that do well for me so you can try them out.

Silvia

Hi Amber

I did not see you post and thank you very much. I really like the Corinto cucumbers, they were the first to come up from the 4 varieties planted.
Amber this season I did not have much problem with the stink bugs. When I was in Monticello and was talking to Rodger, the seed saver for Southern Exposure, Bakers Creek and others, he said he had a big problem with the stink bugs and we talked about it that we saw somebody made from soda bottles. I had Willy make 1 for me but I did not catch any bug! he said "you don't have enough" lol
If you make it, let me know if it works for you.:)

Silvia

Here is a link that might be useful: stink bug

Thanks for the tip Silvia. I'll look into it if the stink bugs return. I think they've moved on to someone elses cucumbers for now.

Katkin, congratulations on your great-grandbaby Sylas! You are so lucky to be able to enjoy your extended family. Thanks for sharing your new joy.

Hester, yes, let's get together maybe early next month What do you think?

Silvia, that was very interesting about the stink bug traps. I think I would have the heeby jeebies if they were in my home in great numbers like that. Gave me chills to see it. The row cover idea is a good one. I forgot about that and have some somewhere in the garage. Thanks! I guess it's normal for those cucumber tips to yellow and look stunted? I put a little boric acid around the base of the pots to see if it would stop the ants.

Silvia, I love my queen's wreath. Yes, it is very carefree and last year, now that it's maturing, rewarded me with 3 or 4 flushes of beautiful flowers. I know with your green thumb it will be beautiful for you this year. I will post some garden pics when I can get some that are worth showing. Probably not for a couple of weeks since my yard is still recovering from the wind, and me pulling stuff up! I have not planted much new this year.

Chrissy, I'm glad there's another foliage lover out there! By the way, it's great to be learning from our mistakes/others' mistakes/problems. Silvia is such a wonderful resource for us. It seems I'm always having problems with something!

Anna

Here's a few pics of my veggie garden. Nothing spectacular, but I'm grateful for what I have. This is an overall view of entering the "farm" area. Kale in the front, broccoli in the middle, pole beans to the right.

Zucchinis

Cucumbers

red kuri squash

tomatoes

Front area with zucchini, more tomatoes, cucumbers and broccoli in the back.

peppers

That's it for now. The smaller bed is all torn up from the raccoons and only has/had seedlings.

Anna

Anna

Congratulations! your garden looks so good and bountiful, harvests will follow in your well tend veggie area, everything looks healthy, I am happy for you.

Silvia

Anna, I think your "farm" looks pretty spectacular for Florida.

Love it all Anna! I am absolutely fascinated by the pole beans. Do those containers have bottoms? If not, I had no idea they could be that shallow - now I'm looking at mine, thinking I gave up some valuable garden real estate! I think the squash is very pretty, such a beautiful deep green. Definitely a spectacular garden IMO

I will definitely email you Sylvia, thank you so much for the offer. I'm doing a little dance, just so you know.

Woo hoo!
Chrissy

I wish GW had a LIKE button like Facebook does....cause sometimes that is just what I want to say. I LIKE it!

Well, I'm glad you all like it. I have more failures than successes it seems. Right now, I'm noticing aphids. First on my cucumber leaves (ants tending to them), and now today on my zucchini leaves. I did notice a lady bug, but wonder if they're within time. I was going to spray some pyrethrin on the affected leaves, but now I don't think I want to. Maybe soap? Always something! Also, my cucumber tips are yellowing browning. They have some, but not many aphids. I can hardly find a flower on the cucumber vines anymore. Why? Is it the aphids? I just killed a beetle eating my pole bean leaves and knocked off some eggs on some of the leaves too! Aaarrrrggghhhhh! Silvia, how do you do it?

On the good side, one of my kuri squash vines I think has a pollinated squash! I also see a couple more female flowers coming!

Chrissy, I am trying Silvia's technique for the pole beans. Basically, we put lots of good sized-holes on the bottom of those plastic trays and filled them with a good potting soil. I planted the beans in them. Supposedly, the beans get a better start- some size and strength on them before the roots go through the holes and hit the lower soil with the nematodes. Maybe some strong roots start developing before they get hit? Silvia, do I have that right?

Anna

Anna

We all go to the same issues with the bugs, when is hot they are very active, that is the reason I plant squash and cucumbers in containers in the summer, in the spring I can plant them in the raised bed. Same with beans, the yard long beans I plant them in pots just like you did, when the roots are stronger they can have a nematode attack with no problem.
Recently I found a local organic and hydroponic store that I found carries a lot of the products that I used to buy only on the web, I do believe that stronger plants can resist any bug attack. In this store they have been giving me a lot of free organic products to try and I am very happy with them. Last time that I visited they gave me a compost tea that they had analized for nutrients.
I also take out any plant that is in decline or old or anything that looks like bug attractor.:)
For example my winter squash is ready to pick and the plant already looks spent, I probably clear out and will plant something different. If you already had cucumbers, maybe the plant won't produce anymore. It is also a good idea to space them out planting at different times like every week or two. I did the zucchini and cucumbers like that.
For all the cole crops I just hose them down to keep the bugs out, when cooler they will be better.
About the pyrethrin, it is the only thing used in Monticello and it is not working!lol, I have never seen so many bugs, they have the complete zoo with the worst ones probably been all sorts of stink bugs, every one that was taking the garden tour were Master Gardeners somewhere and had similar problems, since the guide had no answers, we told them to go watch how to make the stink bug trap on you tube:)
After seen the showcase gardens in Monticello were thousands of people see it every day, I am more relaxed about the imperfection and bugs in the veggie garden, just remember they are not ornamentals and as long as they give some veggies it is all good.

Silvia

You are so right, Silvia. I need to relax. If the viruses come, I guess they will come and I will need to try again. No use in fretting. I guess my cukes are getting close to the end. It's just that it wasn't long ago it was the beginning! Anyway, thanks for the good advice as always.

Anna