Topic: Gardeners

[demon78]

To start off with I hope we get rain shortly and here what's coming up at the moment a bunch of mid season tomatoes, Paul Robeson, Franchi Red Pear, Azoychka and Tigrella  and yes the intrigueing ones are the Azoychka sorry I put them back to front.
Bill the demon.

[TwoTired]

Those look fun.  How do they taste?

I just have beefsteak, early girl, cherry, and, better boy.

But, what flavor these have!  Makes the ones in the store seem like paper pulp.

Cheers,

[cookindaddy]

Bill - wow!

I am still looking at green tomatoes here and I am maybe 70 miles south of you? Good work, the basket picture is art, I hope you are enjoying the taste.

[demon78]

TT my wife tells me that the Azoychka Is less acid than some because it's a yellow (I've not had any yet because I'm on antibiotics at the moment and any thing with acid will cause me to extrude my #$%*) and it has a floral taste it also is best if it's eaten as soon as it's ripe because they get mushy if left to long as far as the others the Paul Robeson kind of a rich smoky flavor the red pear, like a good beef steak. Thank god I'll be off the antibiotics when the main harvest comes through.
Bill the demon.

[demon78]

Cooking Daddy to a certain extent these are an anomaly ( also raised bed, heavily mulched, sheltered location, and they are getting sun from 7 to 7-8 o'clock other thing we gambled and planted early ) we still got many varieties that are green.
Including some that are supposed to be early. Also this why our peas didn't do well.
Bill the demon.

[72500john]

2nd crop of beans is almost ready and the punkins my father in law brought the seed in from new zealand on his visit are going nuts. they are new zealand crown punkins. commonly known as a grey punkin. local name is whangaparaoa crown.
good god i can barley pronounce it and spell it!! hope to get some seeds form them for next year. if anyone wants any let me know. cukes are doing well, have 8 flats of pickles in the basement. getting ready for the fall garden with swiss chard, coolards, Essex winter rape, mustard greens, and kale.
i don"t do tomatoes but the ones i have seen here look great..i get all of mine from my nieghbor. he gives me tomatoes, i give him greens.

[TwoBigCats]

i harvested 11+ gallons of honey from my 3small hives over the weekend.

our tomatoes are doing great and w seem to have 5+ volunteer butternut squash plants that are doing great, too.

whoever posted that basket full of tomatoes - very cool, love the variety and colors!

what a great board sohc is ... very cool.

[TwoTired]

i harvested 11+ gallons of honey from my 3small hives over the weekend.

Holy crap!  How often can you do that?  I have visions of a million bees looking for their retirement stash. 

[cookindaddy]

I never had bees but I find the idea fascinating. They get alone fine without us it seems. This article was in the local paper here this week:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/honey-leaking-from-ceiling-leads-to-discovery-of-80000-bees-inside-ontario-home/article4450275/

[72500john]

a gentleman down the hill has a few hives. i am sure his bees are in my garden helping things along. i always plant a row of some kind of sunflowers in the garden to bring them around. and the song birds benefit from the in the fall from the seeds.

[demon78]

No question about bringing bee's around, has anyone heard about the virus that's killing bee's world wide?
Bill the demon.

[Bob Wessner]

http://m.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jun/07/honey-bees-virus-varrora-destructor-mites?cat=environment&type=articlehttp://

[demon78]

Thanks Bob.
Bill the demon.

[TwoBigCats]

i harvested 11+ gallons of honey from my 3small hives over the weekend.

Holy crap!  How often can you do that?  I have visions of a million bees looking for their retirement stash. 

that will be the main harvest of the year for me ... i did a couple of very minor harvests over the past two months as we had visitors w/children and they always want to see how it's done. in total, the earlier pulls produced ~1-1.5 gallons.  depending on the honey flow now through fall, i may do yet another good harvest and in that should pull another 5 gallons or so.  total, i've got about 16 gallons stashed away - it makes great holiday gifting, etc.

if you're a serious gardener and your local ordinances allow it, i heartily endorse keeping a couple of hives for boosting your (and your neighbor's) garden production. that aside, beehives are fascinating to watch in action and the honey is nice to have, too

[TwoBigCats]

a gentleman down the hill has a few hives. i am sure his bees are in my garden helping things along. i always plant a row of some kind of sunflowers in the garden to bring them around. and the song birds benefit from the in the fall from the seeds.

you know, when i'm out and about on my daily bicycle ride around town and i see a garden as nice as yours, i try to drop off a pint of honey to the owner and let him know how much my bees and our local ecosystem appreciate their garden.  what's cool about doing this is we often develop a good, "hiya, howya doin', i've got some fresh xxx for you if you'd like some" relationship; since my wife and i can 50+ cases of jams / jellies from our fruit trees each year, these relationships usually work out well for the gardener and us over the years.

nice garden ya got there

[TwoBigCats]

No question about bringing bee's around, has anyone heard about the virus that's killing bee's world wide?
Bill the demon.

bill,

i've only been a beek for 5 seasons, but i try to stay reasonably well informed (belong to the local beek guild, read a fair bit on the topics, etc) but i don't think there's an agreed-upon, definitive evidence of a single cause of CCD (colony collapse disorder) that european honeybees have experienced these past 8+ years.  there are many suggested / possible contributors to their disappearance - parasites, disease, herbicides, etc - but to the best of my knowledge, there isn't a single agreed-upon cause / solution to the issue.

my friends and i have been fortunate in that we haven't experienced a CCD loss yet ....

[DJ_AX]

I've never been a gardener before ... however this year me and a co-worker set up something at work. 

[the technological J]

got my basil pruned back... now prepping for some oils and pesto

[72500john]

here is my first new zealand crown punkin and some of the beans from the garden. got a few more rows to get.

[TwoBigCats]

I've never been a gardener before ... however this year me and a co-worker set up something at work. 

appears to be working out pretty well so far!

[TwoBigCats]

here is my first new zealand crown punkin and some of the beans from the garden. got a few more rows to get.

very cool.

[TwoBigCats]

got my basil pruned back... now prepping for some oils and pesto

how much pesto will that amount of basil produce?

[72500john]

here is my first new zealand crown punkin and some of the beans from the garden. got a few more rows to get.

very cool.

i just have to learn not to plant sooooo many dang beans!!

[the technological J]

got my basil pruned back... now prepping for some oils and pesto

how much pesto will that amount of basil produce?

alot! i had an early harvest and it wasnt nearly what this one was... my last one made about 3 cups... this one i anticipate a gallon at least or 16 cups.. im pretty impressed with it.. ill let you know when i finish

[faux fiddy]

To start off with I hope we get rain shortly and here what's coming up at the moment a bunch of mid season tomatoes, Paul Robeson, Franchi Red Pear, Azoychka and Tigrella  and yes the intrigueing ones are the Azoychka sorry I put them back to front.
Bill the demon.

My tomatos are forgotten, but not dead. Maybe a fall harvesr will come on.

Friends have been sending me to harvest theirs, I return salsa and more tomatos show up.

Lemme know if you want an awesome easy recipe, made gallons of it now. It was really popular at the races. Immitates a local restraunts, as much homegrown as possible , but usually involves a trip to the grocery store.