2016 Garden Photos

[efisakov]

Jen, nice garden.

[jhp]

Originally Posted by heirloomtomaguy

Beautiful garden! I love the way you have your raised beds tiered on the hillside. They just look awesome.

Originally Posted by efisakov

Jen, nice garden.

Aw, thank you both very much!

tomatoguy-we built those raised beds 11 years ago. Time flies! In the spring we did repairs as they want to come apart eventually. Gravity. But you can't even tell now. This is our sunniest spot, in the backyard, which is sloped. This works much better than trying to grow straight into the dirt on a slope where everything is falling downhill.

Jen

[jmsieglaff]

Your garden built along the hillside with the big mulched paths and big flat stones surrounded by woods looks like paradise. You should be very proud and it should be on the front of a gardening magazine! What direction does the hill face?

[jhp]

Originally Posted by jmsieglaff

Your garden built along the hillside with the big mulched paths and big flat stones surrounded by woods looks like paradise. You should be very proud and it should be on the front of a gardening magazine! What direction does the hill face?

Thank you. That is so sweet of you to say! Unfortunately, the hill faces about Northeast. It has the least tree shade so that is how the garden ended up there. We've taken a few trees down over the years and need to take more that have grown in towards the garden.

Jen

[jhp]

This eggplant grew overnight, literally. I decided to pick it for tonight's dinner. This is Nadia and there are many more to come. Planted out 5/23. Harvesting at small size at 54 days, could have let it get bigger. That's much better than the seed packet 80 dtm.



Jen

[berryman]

Beautiful eggplant jhp.
Here's my new bed of prime Jim blackberries, I just took a few sweaty hours and mulched them good. 22 of them total. I've got about 30 triple crown blackberries that I've got to find the time to do the same.

[jhp]

Originally Posted by berryman

Beautiful eggplant jhp.
Here's my new bed of prime Jim blackberries, I just took a few sweaty hours and mulched them good. 22 of them total. I've got about 30 triple crown blackberries that I've got to find the time to do the same.

That looks promising. A lot of blackberries in your future!

Jen

[jhp]

I grabbed these 2 on my way out today. I may wait another day or so to eat. I read that they are better "pink" ripe, but they are still very firm. My first time growing Maglia Rosa. I guess I can experiment as I get more. I think they are very pretty, which is a plus for me.



Jen

[jhp]

So I went on a week vacation with my hubby to the Jersey shore. Before we left, I took measures to keep the garden safe. I checked and adjusted the watering systems to make sure they were all working properly, I fired up the electric fence on it's nightly timer, and I put fresh batteries and turned on my shower radios. I've been doing this for years and the fence really helps keep nocturnal animals out and the radios keep the squirrels out of my garden during the day. I tune two radios to two different AM talk radio stations with the volume low. It sounds like people in the garden. I'm telling you it works.

Now the birds are another story. I haven't had trouble with them bothering the veggies or tomatoes, but they have been stealing my blueberries the past two years. Three summers ago, I put strands of metallic ribbon crisscrossing my bushes and pinwheels in and around. This worked!

I left it there over the winter and then next summer, well, it maybe was too old and worn out, it didn't work. In fact a robin made a nest on my back patio light and used some of the ribbon in her nest! See the bit of ribbon sticking out?



I decided to renew my efforts this year and strung up the ribbon again. Maybe a little late in the season. I put this up about a month ago. I probably should have put it up when the bushes still had flowers. The birds already had their eye on those berries.






The first bush ripened and they ate all the berries off of it. I thought I wouldn't get any. With my mind on squirrels, which I really haven't seen around lately (thank you foxes), I put out my shower radios. I put them near the blueberry bushes, just to see if it had any effect. Well, I got back from my week long vacation and low and behold, there are still berries on at least one of my bushes and they are ripening!!! Radios must be doing something!

I picked these a couple days ago and then a bit more yesterday.


My tradition with blueberry harvest is to make blueberry pancakes. Instead of putting the berries in the pancakes, I make a syrup and pour it over the top.



So yummy! Cooking intensifies the flavor, which is already much more potent than store bought. I ate one raw while cooking and it was a flavor explosion in my mouth. No wonder those birds won't leave them alone! A few more raw blueberries thrown on top along with a couple of raspberries, also amazing. By the way, I mentioned before that I eat gluten free/grain free and that is still the case, no exceptions for blueberry pancakes. These are made with green banana flour. Delicious.



Jen

[efisakov]

Jen, beautiful garden. This pancakes had to be awesome. I am drooling.

btw I am dealing with birds (sparrows) as well. They are picking on the flowers of my cucumbers and by eating them killing the cuces. My neighbor is feeding stray cats and squirrels right on the other side of the fence, birds do not care. I have water standing right next to the cucumbers. The birds still take cuces flowers. I am there with you, it is so hard to see your crop disappearing, and we are talking completely gone.

[jhp]

Thanks so much! I really didn't think I was going to get any berries this year. Didn't last year.

That is so frustrating with the cukes. Once a bird decides it likes something, it just keeps eating it until it's gone. I think that's just how they forage. Can you cover them somehow? I don't like to use the bird netting as they can get tangled up in it trying to go after whatever they're after, but I considered it after losing most of my berries this year. Maybe row cover? or just cover the individual baby cukes with tulle? I know that sounds drastic, but I tried it last year with broccoli. It worked until I got a hole in my tulle and the moths got in. I should have put a new piece. I think it would work with cukes. Wish I could help more.

My cuke plants are terrible. I think they have bacteria wilt, according to google. Comes from the cuke beetles, which there were a lot of this year. Plus stink bugs. I'm wondering why so many bugs this year. Seems like an endless supply despite my picking them off daily and applications of neem.

Jen

Originally Posted by efisakov

Jen, beautiful garden. This pancakes had to be awesome. I am drooling.

btw I am dealing with birds (sparrows) as well. They are picking on the flowers of my cucumbers and by eating them killing the cuces. My neighbor is feeding stray cats and squirrels right on the other side of the fence, birds do not care. I have water standing right next to the cucumbers. The birds still take cuces flowers. I am there with you, it is so hard to see your crop disappearing, and we are talking completely gone.

[heirloomtomaguy]

The blueberry topping on those pancakes looks sooooo good. Our blueberry plants have been done for a couple months so we are stuck buying them.

[efisakov]

Here in NJ we were not permitted to grow Black Currants until few years ago. But it is still highly regulated that makes it just not possible to grow couple bushes. I love them. They have similar taste as Blueberries, just much bigger bush.
If it is allowed in your state I would recommend them. Very aromatic berries.

[pixlpush]

I've had good luck deterring birds in the past with old CD's tied to strings and hanging from things. They blow around in the wind and create all sorts of reflections from the sun that the birds don't like. I've not had many bird issues recently so I'm not using them now but they've helped in the past.

[jhp]

Originally Posted by pixlpush

I've had good luck deterring birds in the past with old CD's tied to strings and hanging from things. They blow around in the wind and create all sorts of reflections from the sun that the birds don't like. I've not had many bird issues recently so I'm not using them now but they've helped in the past.

Good point. Yes, I've heard that too. I'll give it a try. Maybe Ella should too. Thanks.

Jen