16 replies to this topic

[ShooterJohn]

Well it's time for the vegetables to start coming in and ours are no exception. Here is the harvest just from tonight. I didn't include all of the squash and I picked cucumbers last night so they aren't included. The reason we have so many tomatoes and will have many more is because my wife decided to plant to many varieties. We have 42 tomato plants.The small tomatoes are Sweet 100's which are the red small ones and Sun Golds the small yellow orange ones. Sun Golds are a very low acid and I think a much sweeter cherry tomato. The cantaloupes will be really going soon and I just dropped a couple of our Papaya pear squash in to show them I have two buckets full of them. The other tomatoes are several varieties to many to mention. The bigger ones the wife is holding and in the one bucket are Caspian an heirloom variety known for their larger size but are very tasty. Needless to say we supply most of out neighbors and family friends with vegetables. Our garden is rather large so we get to try many different types of vegetables. It will be salsa producing time here after everyone is sick of tomatoes.  DSC_0600.jpg   37.37K   50 downloads  DSC_0602.jpg   25.81K   47 downloads

[Pogo]

Nice John.We had a 'local' dinner tonight. Steak from a steer raised right here on the place, with horseradish from one of our fields, new potatoes from one of my customers fields with peas from our garden, zuchini bread from the garden, and a salad from our garden and that of neighbors who trade stuff with the wifey.I've been planting an orchard over the last few years, if I can keep it from getting frozen every year I might even have fruit!I used to grow barley for Coors Brewing Co., so I could even claim that maybe my beer came from the local area, but I don't think they buy any barley here anymore.

[Braz]

Dang, all you guys with lots of room to plant nice big gardens, I'm very envious. I have enough room for 4 tomato plants. That's it. Pogo, I really want to know where I can buy that Zuchini Bread plant. I love Zuchini Bread but have never been able to find a good plant.

[ShooterJohn]

We have seventeen fruit trees so far and many of them are called fruit cocktails with four or more varieties on each tree. My potatoes are almost ready we grow them in growing bags full of compost we make from all of the yard waste around here as well as horse and our chickens manure. I think we made about 40 yards of compost last year since getting the tractor. We give away compost to the neighbors too since some of the ingredients come from them anyway. I need to grow some horseradish as it is my favorite condiment. We grow Stockton red onions too as well as many salad fixings. If you can eat it and it grows out of the ground we'll try it.

[jawbreaker]

John, where do you get those trees and what kinds if fruits do they grow?

[ShooterJohn]

We get our Multi-Budded Fruit Trees from Dave Wilson Nursery. They are carried by most of the local nurseries in the fall.http://www.davewilso...s/multibud.html

[Pogo]

We get our Multi-Budded Fruit Trees from Dave Wilson Nursery. They are carried by most of the local nurseries in the fall.http://www.davewilso...s/multibud.html

Looks interesting, lot of good information on that website regarding orchards. Those trees would be nice for having lots of different varieties. Let me know if you want a horseradish root or two to plant. I don't know how they would do in your climate.Braz, the zuchini bread plant is a very rare species indeed. The plant only seems to be able to produce zuchini bread when my wife is nearby.

[MikeNC]

Great looking veggies there John...gonna have to start calling you Farmer John rather than shooter My Dad tried multiple times to graft peach shoots to our apple, pear and plum trees. He did succeed in getting a graft to take, but it never produced fruit. It was still a cool coup just to see it grow on the other tree. I love horseradish myself and grind my own...but it's store bought root, but still very good. That will be some dynamite salsa hitting your table. Congrats to you and your wife to see your hard work rewarded so plentiful

[ShooterJohn]

We enjoy the gardening it's one of my favorite pastimes. It's always fun to see what you can produce from the soil. I have some ground I'm working up for next year by turning a friends old horse pasture into a garden. It was so hard from 40 years of horses compacting the ground it was like concrete. But I purchased a Berta Rotary Plow attachment for my BCS tiller and it digs 12 inches deep in one pass through anything. Here is a video showing the unit like mine in action.I've owned many tillers from small garden ones to tractor mounted units and this one beats the biggest for turning anything from concrete hard ground to winter cover crops right into garden usable ground in one pass. It makes raised beds in a pass one direction and then one in the other. It's just an amazing unit. I've dug some football sized river rocks out with it and it spits them out like watermelon seeds. Maybe I don't care for the gardening but the mechanical toys.

[Braz]

Dang, that looks like one digging machine.

[PredatorMaster]

Looks good John I miss having a garden.

[ShooterJohn]

Yesterday we pulled some potatoes from some of our compost grown potato bags. Yes we grow potatoes in compost because it's easy and you don't have the bugs that can cause problems when growing them in the ground. Plus I have lots and lots of compost and it works very well. I choose two different types to show you. They are the Purple Pelisse and Yukon Gold potatoes.The Purple Pelisse's potatoes are purple on the inside too and make really cool purple mashed potatoes that kids love. Well, I like them a whole lot too and they make very neat purple potato chips. The Yukon Golds are a great frying potato as they don't get soft like russets do when you cook them. I like them fried up with some of our squash and Stockton red onions we grow.

[Braz]

Wow, those all look great John. I love the Yukon Gold. I like them just boiled and then with butter, salt and pepper.

[Pogo]

Wow, where did you get Pelisse seed? It has only been out for what, a year or so? I know of one grower who is growing some for seed increase this year. I've never eaten them, but have tried many other fingerling types. One of my customers partners with another guy on some fingerlings every year. Which means I get to do a little quality control right out of the field. A local commodity group purchased the exclusive rights to that variety, although I don't know what that means for home gardeners. I just read an article about it, said they are changing the name to purple pasion or something.Unless you have had fresh potatoes, you don't know what you are missing. We eat a lot of new potatoes and peas (some call it creamed potatoes and peas) all summer long, with baby spuds dug right from the field. Then when they get close to harvest I love a good russet potato fresh from the field. It makes a big difference on where they were grown, a lot of potatoes are grown in this valley but only some areas have the real sandy soil. Makes for lower yields but you get a much nicer, 'netted' skin and the potatoes themselves taste much better.Probably more than you wanted to know, but I'm sorta picky about my potatoes. Grew up growing potatoes, although I don't farm any myself. Wifes family is all potato farmers or packers as well. Spuds used to be a big thing here in this area, although most that are grown now are for Frito Lay potato chips.

[Hookum]

SJ did you make your potatoe bags or buy them? I'd like to try some next year if you have any suggestions. Also I checked out the site for the cocktail trees and am going to order one for this fall. I've got just spot for it in the back yard.

[Hookum]

SJ did you make your potatoe bags or buy them? I'd like to try some next year if you have any suggestions. Also I checked out the site for the cocktail trees and am going to order one for this fall. I've got just spot for it in the back yard.

[ShooterJohn]

I got my starter potatoes for a friend at UC Davis early last year and this is my second season with them. They are great potatoes. I agree with everything you said about potatoes fresh from the field and their taste. We have Russet and red potatoes too. I grow them all year round and the bags and buckets I use make it easy to move them around. The trick to growing them in a bag or bucket in compost is to only put in about four inches of compost and then push your starter piece into that. Then when the plant breaks the surface wait until the second set of leaves appears then cover the first set of leaves with more compost. Continue doing that until the bag or bucket is almost full. You will get potatoes at each of the leaf points. Then wait until the plant flowers and starts to die back. Harvest potatoes!