Container Gardening

[freebird5825]

I picked another 6" cucumber today, making my total harvest = 4, all during this week.
Uh oh...these cuke vines are beginning to take on the "zucchini syndrome", dozens of flowers and all producing a teeny cuke every few days. It may be time to dig out that refrigerator pickle recipe.
If we get [-]sick of eating them[/-] overwhelmed in the next few weeks, the extras will be given to the Legion morning coffee dudes.
Sugar snap peas are forming blossoms by the dozen with a few tiny pods formed. I have been picking filet beans at a slower rate. I feel a shrimp and veggie stir fry coming on.
Ripe tomatoes are still weeks away. I bought 2 tomatoes from the grocery store and was unimpressed with the price and the flavor. Not much longer until I taste a REAL tomato.
All in all, I am happy with the container gardening results. The Eboxes were expensive, but the enjoyment and the fresh pesticide free produce I am getting is well worth every dollar spent.

 

[simple girl]

All in all, I am happy with the container gardening results. The Eboxes were expensive, but the enjoyment and the fresh pesticide free produce I am getting is well worth every dollar spent.

YUM and yay for your success! We have tons of cucumbers, but so far, no trouble consuming them. We love salads and have started using the cucumbers in place of lettuce. Yummy!

 

[freebird5825]

YUM and yay for your success! We have tons of cucumbers, but so far, no trouble consuming them. We love salads and have started using the cucumbers in place of lettuce. Yummy!

Ah, you just reminded me of a Greek country salad I had when I was there in 1996. It is essentially chopped cukes, onions and tomato chunks, all marinated in olive oil and spices, with Feta cheese and kalamata olives added at serving time.

I found a version online
http://www.mediterrasian.com/delicious_recipes_greek_salad.htm

How are you using the cukes? sliced or chopped ?

 

[simple girl]

Ah, you just reminded me of a Greek country salad I had when I was there in 1996. It is essentially chopped cukes, onions and tomato chunks, all marinated in olive oil and spices, with Feta cheese and kalamata olives added at serving time.

I found a version online
Greek salad recipe - MediterrAsian.com

How are you using the cukes? sliced or chopped ?

That salad looks yummy! Might have to get me some feta cheese. And I sooo love kalamata olives. Thanks for the inspiration!

We are slicing the cuc's. We switch up the versions - usually the staples of cucumbers, tomatoes, and onions - vary the dressings. Often add chopped fresh basil from the garden with some EVOO and balsamic vinegar or red wine vinegar to mix it up. Also often add fresh garlic and black olives. Or, just basic blue cheese dressing.

Tuna, egg, or chicken salad on cucumbers is a great little snack - and no extra calories from crackers or bread this way.

Tonight I used our thai basil with the veggie mix, added rice wine vinegar, sesame oil, garlic, and chopped peanuts for an asian version of the salad. Keeps it different and salad continues to be interesting and yummy.

 

[mh]

good old english cucumber sandwiches are great too. just google for recipes if needed

 

[freebird5825]

After a 4 day hiatus from the board...

Great cuke ideas. TY

So far I have simply sliced them 1/4" thick, with skin on, and marinated them for a day in basic Italian dressing. We love them as a side dish for dinner.

I have harvested almost a dozen cukes to date. The vines show no sign of giving up, grown to over 5' tall now. More and more flowers keep appearing on a daily basis.
The "zucchini syndrome" continues....

Filet beans are coming in gangbusters. Peas are right behind them.
There is nothing like a sugar snap pea or bean, picked fresh and eaten raw as a snack.

 

[bruce1]

Ah, you just reminded me of a Greek country salad I had when I was there in 1996. It is essentially chopped cukes, onions and tomato chunks, all marinated in olive oil and spices, with Feta cheese and kalamata olives added at serving time.

I found a version online
Greek salad recipe - MediterrAsian.com

How are you using the cukes? sliced or chopped ?

I made this salad substituting Zucchini for the cucumber as I have a surplus of Zucchini. I cubed the Zucchini and used a lot more onion. Very good but may have been better with cucumber. Was better the second day. They were some of my first garden tomatoes and a few from the containers.

Free Zucchini at my place.

 

[freebird5825]

I made this salad substituting Zucchini for the cucumber as I have a surplus of Zucchini. I cubed the Zucchini and used a lot more onion. Very good but may have been better with cucumber. Was better the second day. They were some of my first garden tomatoes and a few from the containers.

Free Zucchini at my place.

Sorry, I should have mentioned that I let the mixture (minus the feta cheese and olives) marinate for at least a day. Add the feta cheese and olives at serving time, only to what you will consume that day. Otherwise the cheese gets icky, and the olives lose their own flavor.

Zucchini and cucumber party at Bruce's. I'll bring the cukes.

 

[freebird5825]

We just had 4 ripe tomatoes from 1 of the bush tomato varieties, sliced with salt and pepper. Wow! There are 4 more that are just about ripe. Baked stuffed tomatoes, Greek style, are in our near future. wooooo
Beans continuing to be harvested, cukes STILL going insane, and sugar snap peas Part I are delivering small "pop in your mouth" harvests each week. The sugar snap peas Part II in the Earthbox are growing like crazy but no blossoms yet.
I am freezing fresh oregano with every trim job. Still waiting on those garlic scapes. I moved my green onions and Italian parsley into my indoor 10 gal aquarium with the grow light. It was too hot outside for both of them.

 

[bruce1]

Help I am trapped under the zucchini and squash plants. Bushels of tomatoes in my future

 

[freebird5825]

Help I am trapped under the zucchini and squash plants. Bushels of tomatoes in my future

If you show me YOUR tomatoes, I'll show you MINE.

 

[veremchuka]

We just had 4 ripe tomatoes from 1 of the bush tomato varieties, sliced with salt and pepper. Wow! ....... Still waiting on those garlic scapes. I moved my green onions and Italian parsley into my indoor 10 gal aquarium with the grow light. It was too hot outside for both of them.

There's nothing like summer tomatoes! Wow is right!

As to the scapes, I think we discussed this but I can't recall. I'm not an expert but I do know something about gardening and alliums, I have grown garlic and onions for years. Garlic, I suspect, is the same as onions in that they form their bulbs during the longest days of the year. Assuming that is true for garlic, because garlic does form bulbs at that time, I question whether you'll get scapes or bulbs to form this late. For example, if you planted onions now you'd get greens but you wouldn't get a bulb to form.

Keep us posted, I'm curious what will happen.

 

[freebird5825]

There's nothing like summer tomatoes! Wow is right!

As to the scapes, I think we discussed this but I can't recall. I'm not an expert but I do know something about gardening and alliums, I have grown garlic and onions for years. Garlic, I suspect, is the same as onions in that they form their bulbs during the longest days of the year. Assuming that is true for garlic, because garlic does form bulbs at that time, I question whether you'll get scapes or bulbs to form this late. For example, if you planted onions now you'd get greens but you wouldn't get a bulb to form.

Keep us posted, I'm curious what will happen.

I certainly will.
My guess is that I will end up with nice large single cloves of garlic, which is not a bad thing considering that I used grocery store garlic cloves as "seed". Each clove that had a green sprout on it got planted. The rest I used in the kitchen.
My "real" garlic bed in the back ground garden is overgrown with weeds and needs to be redone and replenished with some good stuff. Fall is the time when I will get out there and [-]kick some b*tt[/-] get my real garden back under control.
I plan to hire a young man (he helped with wood carrying last year) to help me with that. He can do the pulling of the biggest weeds and then do the tilling for me.
In the spring, I will cover it all with 3 mil black plastic so the weeds do not re-emerge. Then I will plant some blueberry bushes, transfer existing blackberries, and perhaps put in a few cold hardy fruit trees. I will use landscape cloth around the fruit plantings, leaving the black plastic everywhere else. I also plan to put in some perennial cutting flowers just for fun.
All veggies will be grown in containers from here forward.

 

[bruce1]

If you show me YOUR tomatoes, I'll show you MINE.

 

[simple girl]

I have had some garden "invaders" lately - tomato horn worms and pickleworms (on my cucumbers). I've been able to keep the horn worms under control by picking them off (nasty buggers), but the pickleworms have completely destroyed my cucumber plants. Had to cut them down today and throw all 4 plants away. So sad!

I've planted some lettuce for a fall crop. My thai basil and regular basil are doing fantastic, and my pepper plants are really going to town. Tomato plants have almost taken over the entire back deck, it seems, and we are getting lots of ripe ones now.

I think I have saved my squash plant. I cut off the root/stem completely where it appears the squash borer got it...stuck the healthy part of the vine in the dirt (read this is an old gardener's trick)...and amazingly it has come back! I have a nice big flower on it today.

 

[veremchuka]

I used grocery store garlic cloves as "seed".

Oh, well virtually all grocery store garlic is softneck and that type does not send up scapes though sometimes softnecks grown in the north can produce a small scape, garlic is a weird plant. Garlic used to come from Gilroy Ca but now most seems to be from China.

If you remember there being a hard stem in the center of the bulb around which the cloves grew then that was a hardneck type but I suspect it was a softneck.

Hardnecks produce scapes, softnecks don't.

 

[veremchuka]

but the pickleworms have completely destroyed my cucumber plants. Had to cut them down today and throw all 4 plants away. So sad!

I'm not familiar with pickleworms so I Googled it. If you knew the PW were there you could have sprayed BT on the plants to kill the PW. BT is an organic pesticide that kills caterpillars by shutting down their digestive system, actually it creates crystals in their gut cutting it open and they poison themselves. Once they eat the leaves that have BT on them they immediately stop feeding and die within a couple of days. BT is sold under different names one being Dipel. I use the liquid concentrate. Be careful spraying it because it kills all caterpillars including butterfly cats. Since you have PW I'd get some BT for the next plants you grow.

 

[simple girl]

I'm not familiar with pickleworms so I Googled it. If you knew the PW were there you could have sprayed BT on the plants to kill the PW. BT is an organic pesticide that kills caterpillars by shutting down their digestive system, actually it creates crystals in their gut cutting it open and they poison themselves. Once they eat the leaves that have BT on them they immediately stop feeding and die within a couple of days. BT is sold under different names one being Dipel. I use the liquid concentrate. Be careful spraying it because it kills all caterpillars including butterfly cats. Since you have PW I'd get some BT for the next plants you grow.

Thanks - good to know! I had googled it as well, but this website said:

Pickleworms
"The only reliable control of Pickleworms is cool weather. There are pesticides that will kill them, but the amounts and type of pesticides are all harsh and are not recommended. The best way to grow cucurbits in areas prone to infestation is to start them early and harvest before early June."

So I gave up when I read that. However, I just looked a bit closer at the bt stuff...I definitely will try it next year to see if I can prevent infestation in August...once they get in the cuc's, though, the fruit is lost:

Natural Insecticides: Pickleworm Information | Garden Guides
Spraying flowers with beneficial nematodes once a week is helpful, because the nematodes can survive in the damp enclosed areas of the flowers and attack pickleworms feeding there.

Use of bacterial sprays (Bacillus thuringiensis, Saccharopolyspora spinosa) can also kill pickleworms if they eat the treated flowers and leaves. These sprays cannot kill pickleworms burrowing in fruits and stems.

 

[veremchuka]

Gee this pickleworm sounds like one bad critter.

As I said I never heard of them and took a shot at recommending Bt because it effectively kills all caterpillars. When I started to read the 2 links you provided I started to think maybe Bt wouldn't work but then I saw it suggested it.

If you know the approximate time they appear then I'd start to spray to check it immediately before they get a head start. As long as you get the Bt into the flowers which is where they seem to like to go to feed then all they need to do is eat any part of the flower or cuke that has BT on it.

Spray in the morning after dew has evaporated and things are dry. Bt is washed off by rain and breaks down after a few days by sun light. You need to mix a fresh batch each time, don't store it made.

The liquid concentrate lasts forever as long as you store it in a cool dark place. I'm still using a bottle I bought in the early 90's that I keep in the basement. A 16 oz container will cost about $12 to $15. 1 teaspoon makes 1 quart tho they say 1-2 tsp per quart of water but I always use 1 tsp to 1 quart of water. Very effective against horn worms too.


edited to add - Use of bacterial sprays (Bacillus thuringiensis, Saccharopolyspora spinosa) can also kill pickleworms if they eat the treated flowers and leaves. These sprays cannot kill pickleworms burrowing in fruits and stems.

BTW, Bacillus thuringiensis is Bt.

 

[simple girl]

Gee this pickleworm sounds like one bad critter.

As I said I never heard of them and took a shot at recommending Bt because it effectively kills all caterpillars. When I started to read the 2 links you provided I started to think maybe Bt wouldn't work but then I saw it suggested it.

If you know the approximate time they appear then I'd start to spray to check it immediately before they get a head start. As long as you get the Bt into the flowers which is where they seem to like to go to feed then all they need to do is eat any part of the flower or cuke that has BT on it.

Spray in the morning after dew has evaporated and things are dry. Bt is washed off by rain and breaks down after a few days by sun light. You need to mix a fresh batch each time, don't store it made.

The liquid concentrate lasts forever as long as you store it in a cool dark place. I'm still using a bottle I bought in the early 90's that I keep in the basement. A 16 oz container will cost about $12 to $15. 1 teaspoon makes 1 quart tho they say 1-2 tsp per quart of water but I always use 1 tsp to 1 quart of water. Very effective against horn worms too.


edited to add - Use of bacterial sprays (Bacillus thuringiensis, Saccharopolyspora spinosa) can also kill pickleworms if they eat the treated flowers and leaves. These sprays cannot kill pickleworms burrowing in fruits and stems.

BTW, Bacillus thuringiensis is Bt.

Thank you - and AWESOME that it works against horn worms, too - 2 for 1 deal! BTW, if you read more about pickleworms, you'll see they get killed by winter, except in Florida...they gradually migrate northward every year. How the heck they found my little garden on the back of my deck is amazing to me!

 

[freebird5825]

Oh, well virtually all grocery store garlic is softneck and that type does not send up scapes though sometimes softnecks grown in the north can produce a small scape, garlic is a weird plant. Garlic used to come from Gilroy Ca but now most seems to be from China.

If you remember there being a hard stem in the center of the bulb around which the cloves grew then that was a hardneck type but I suspect it was a softneck.

Hardnecks produce scapes, softnecks don't.

Just saw this post today. Thanks for the reminder about softneck garlic being scape-less.

 

[freebird5825]

My container garden is almost done producing for the year.
I picked and froze 5 quart bags of filet bush beans for the winter. There are still more to pick out there. Amazing bean production in a single Earthbox!
I still have a large bowl of fresh tomatoes in the frig, awaiting the next BACON, tomato and mayo on toast session.
My oregano, parsley, scallions and basil are still growing beautifully and will be wintered over indoors under grow lights.
Today might a good day to clear the Earthboxes of withered cuke and pea plants and move them into the screened porch before the rain arrives later today. I may plant 1 more round of sugar snap peas. Maybe even a cucumber or two just for fun. They just might produce for me before the snow flies .
Garlic never produced scapes, but I bet I have some nice large bulbs out there. I will dig one up and check it out.

So nice to be able to w*rk outdoors again without overheating.

 

[freebird5825]

...Garlic never produced scapes, but I bet I have some nice large bulbs out there. I will dig one up and check it out.

And now...the rest of the story...
I dug up 2 garlic plants. The original clove is intact with beautiful root systems. The garlic tops are just starting to turn a little brown on the edges.
Perhaps my best bet is to let the tops die down a little more, trim them back to soil level and winter them over inside the protection of my plexiglas paneled porch. I will place a thick layer of leaf or grass clippings mulch over the soil surface and arrange the other 2 Earthboxes as flanking cold protection.
I've had volunteers (left behind cloves in the ground garden) develop into medium size garlic heads with divided cloves in past years, so perhaps these will do same in the Earthbox. Maybe not.

 

[simple girl]

I planted my fall crops a few weeks ago: lettuce, broccoli, and brussel sprouts. YUM! And my thai basil continues to overfloweth!

 

[freebird5825]

Gorgeous basil.

My basil is getting there. It is still growing in upright single plants (not bushy) minus the top clippings I've been taking all summer. I'll give it a rest for a week or two and let it grow out some more.

Glad to see you are still doing planting. It is fun isn't it?