Ate our first tomato. Amazing.
Anyone doing a garden?
- Thread starter spartanmanor
- Start date
It's all a part of the madness, but that saved $2.17 buys a BOATLOAD more flavour though!Really though, the savings comes from if you're able to make your own high quality soil and save your seeds from one year to the next, which really makes things a lot cheaper.
True. For me being disabled and by myself here its more of a keep moving keep my mind going more than anything. The initial cost of getting set up is the worst part. Seeds are a few dollars but the soil and amendments can get costly as I live in town..so no free dirt available. This is the second year for half of the soil I'm using..the other half was new stuff added in to the old but fortified soil. At the end of the season I empty and sterilize my rain barrels and store the soil in them. I let the root balls dry out and beat as much of the soil as I can from them.
This year was an addition cost due to growing twice as many plants from last year..so I had to buy more pots and cages. Plus I did the hoops and shadecloth setup as well. The only thing that can wipe out any profits to all the cost and hard work is of course the unpredictable weather..as we have all experienced.
Exactly
I'm not growing veg to just save a few bucks, that's a false economy.
I do it because I was raised with a vegetable garden. It would seem a waste of a perfectly good growing season to not plant a few things. Tend them, watch them grow, I enjoy it. The fact that I get the best tasting tomato of the year out of it is just a bonus !
Besides, the wife spends much more on decorative flowering annual plants than I do on 6 tomato seedlings.
My plants are actually starting to produce a lot of nice peppers now since the temps dropped. Next few days I'll have them covered though as it will be high 80's again..but drops down to low 60's at night so that helps. Rain barrels filled up and then some with the rain we had too. I EVEN HAVE TO MOW THE GRASS AGAIN NOW! 
I took some of the Salsa peppers and put them in an empty dill pickle jar...boiled the left over juice and poured over them to try them pickled. It actually knocked the heat level down to tolerable for me to eat. I still removed the seeds and webbing though...but it gives me an option to save face on ordering too spicy of a pepper. It even softens the skins so they dont feel like bits of plastic when you eat them. So 2-3 day pickled and I can safely chop them up for my chili and reduce the cider vinegar I normally use. I want to see how roasting them first and leave the skins on for pickling. Dunno if they will get too mushy or what.
Been looking into growing another expensive and hard to find ingredient I use a LOT of...cumin seed. Sure you can get the crappy ground stuff at the store but for some reason its been impossible to get the whole seeds. For chili I toast them in a dry pan first then run them through a dedicated pepper/salt mill on cookin' day...nothing like that smell and flavor. Cumin would have liked this summer too as they like high temps. My problem might be their 100-120 day growing season. BUT...if I plant some next year it will be sure to have a cool summer...so at least the peppers will be good to go.
I've got way too much time on my hands.
I took some of the Salsa peppers and put them in an empty dill pickle jar...boiled the left over juice and poured over them to try them pickled. It actually knocked the heat level down to tolerable for me to eat. I still removed the seeds and webbing though...but it gives me an option to save face on ordering too spicy of a pepper. It even softens the skins so they dont feel like bits of plastic when you eat them. So 2-3 day pickled and I can safely chop them up for my chili and reduce the cider vinegar I normally use. I want to see how roasting them first and leave the skins on for pickling. Dunno if they will get too mushy or what.
Been looking into growing another expensive and hard to find ingredient I use a LOT of...cumin seed. Sure you can get the crappy ground stuff at the store but for some reason its been impossible to get the whole seeds. For chili I toast them in a dry pan first then run them through a dedicated pepper/salt mill on cookin' day...nothing like that smell and flavor. Cumin would have liked this summer too as they like high temps. My problem might be their 100-120 day growing season. BUT...if I plant some next year it will be sure to have a cool summer...so at least the peppers will be good to go.
I've got way too much time on my hands.
fredgarvin
Super Member
The early girls are finally ripening, loads of them. If only I had my sense of taste. They say it will come back. Blueberries too, the best crop ever, I bet they are sweet. In. theory. if there turns out to be a long enough season, I've got 10 or 11 loaded Roma plants for sauce.
Celebrity tomatoes coming in now, one or 2 a day.
Cukes are about 3 a day.
Good times !
Cukes are about 3 a day.
Good times !
I dont flush mine...if any oils or whatever are in the water they will be on top and go out the overflow tube. I figure the grass is always lush and green around the rain spouts so it cant be that bad.
Maters looking good there!
Thanks!I dont flush mine...if any oils or whatever are in the water they will be on top and go out the overflow tube. I figure the grass is always lush and green around the rain spouts so it can't be that bad.
Maters looking good there!
I have a flat pitched roof in an urban area so a lot of junk settles on the roof and gets flushed off when it first rains. This first water off the roof is yellowish and not clear. I don't want that settling in my rain barrels. After it's rained a while the water out of the downspout runs clear. That's when I turn the valve to fill the barrels.
Yeah in that case I would. The yellow stuff is probably pollen and dust.
Finally getting some decent Hungarian paprika peppers. Should have another 6-8 more ripe in a couple days so I'll fire up the smoker and try my first smoked paprika. The Poblano plants are really loading up too so I hope they get big like they are supposed too.
I was experimenting with the smoker yesterday and found that using the charcoal snake method in it instead of gas...I can keep the temps at a steady 130°...perfect for peppers.
I was experimenting with the smoker yesterday and found that using the charcoal snake method in it instead of gas...I can keep the temps at a steady 130°...perfect for peppers.
Very nice! We've had a really rough summer here my garden has been a major disappointment vs. years past. My cherry tomatoes and jalapenos (even though they're on the smallish side) are the only thing that's really done well. Both varieties of tomatoes have been a bust, my butternut squash has only produced one fruit. The Malabar Red spinach is thriving, and I had a very good early crop of radishes, but everything else has sucked. I'm jealous of your yield.
I've had similar results as MitsuMan, peppers and cherry tomatoes . Our yellow squash plant died after mid July, only got a couple squash. The cherry tomatoes grew from previous years and took over the regular tomatoes. We've had lots of rain this summer, probably too much.
@MitsuMan ...thanks...but now that the temps have dropped...a new episode of my nightmare.....
Like I said the plants have a lot of peppers on them now but they are still small and thin walled. They seem to have stalled at that point except for a few...like they're afraid to continue growing for fear of the next plague.
@sfox52 ...that sucks...we need a way to divide this rain thing up better as we had very little this year up until recently. We could be rich!
Like I said the plants have a lot of peppers on them now but they are still small and thin walled. They seem to have stalled at that point except for a few...like they're afraid to continue growing for fear of the next plague.
@sfox52 ...that sucks...we need a way to divide this rain thing up better as we had very little this year up until recently. We could be rich!
Oh hell!@MitsuMan ...thanks...but now that the temps have dropped...a new episode of my nightmare.....
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Like I said the plants have a lot of peppers on them now but they are still small and thin walled. They seem to have stalled at that point except for a few...like they're afraid to continue growing for fear of the next plague.
@sfox52 ...that sucks...we need a way to divide this rain thing up better as we had very little this year up until recently. We could be rich!
