2020 gardens

[Don McCombs]

4X4 boxes raised beds no rows.

Think about 4 X 8 raised beds. More efficient use of space.

[Peter Person]

Hasenpfeffer....Yum!

[SONNY]

Made some kraut with these tops and they do work great. Also been working on the red shell beans. ---Need to do one batch of corn in the freeze-drier.
half gallon jars of kraut

a couple jars of red shell beans. so far we have 35 quarts, and a few more to go

the red bean plants

handful of the pods, this is an average sample of the size of them.

[Dale Finch]

Hey, Sonny! When do you start shipping your stuff out?! I'll send my address!!!

[SONNY]

I take it you think it looks good????? --- we do make some good stuff here! lol!! --- keeps us alive during the winter!

[outdoors4evr]

I haven't seen lids like that before. Why the bump up on the top?

[SONNY]

These are special fermenting tops. You make the kraut in the jar an when it's as strong as you want it , ( for us its 2 weeks or so) you take the yellow valve cap off and put the black cap on and that s'posed to stop the fermenting process. They so work and according to the company that makes them, you can ferment anything that will fit in the jars. --- You furnish the jars of your choice. We found 1/2 gallon jars work good.

[SONNY]

Just did the last batch of sweetcorn for 2020--- 9 pints in the pressure caner and 7 bags from the freeze-drier. season is winding down fast.
Now trying to can a few tomatoes,--did 7 quarts yesterday-- more to go IF my fingers will peel more

[SONNY]

did 4 caners of tomatoes, probably quit at that.

[outdoors4evr]

That's a good day canning!

[Bill]

This year half of our tomatoes have a hard green core, out side looks great, other people seem to have this also. Top third is cut a way, waste. Is this a area thing, or has anyone else had problem. We always grow more than we need, but do not want to give away this kind of fruit.
Bill

[SONNY]

This year we had a lot of the green shoulder stuff too , BUT only in some varieties! I think certain varieties under certain weather conditions are more likely to have this problem!
I was working on small fireball tomatoes, ( not by choice) and they were great, just small. also the roma type were great.----ever peel romas???? LOL!! I did!
I did notice some triple-crop large variety were bad with the green---they always have some but this year were very bad.
a couple jars of the tomatoes we caned, lotta work peeling them little guys but they will taste good this winter!

[Bill]

We do not raise Romas any more,good for sauce but there is better for table. Napa Grape from Burpees did not have a problem. Can not buy plants, Wife raises them from seed. Other than tomatoes our garden was very good, with the help of soaker hoses.
Bill

[Mht]

My garden has played out except for okra. In Raleigh we averaged about three inches of rain a week for most of my summer garden. I only ran my irrigation system once all summer. Lots of stuff rotted on the vines. Tomatoes did fair although many rotted and split on the vines. I had 500 plants so I still got a pretty good number of tomatoes. I hope to plant a fall garden but it won’t quit raining long enough to get the tiller in it. If I can’t get it tilled and planted in the next week I’m not going to bother.

[SONNY]

The weather this year has taken a toll on all of our gardens! ---- most of us did get a fair amount of produce even so.
Right now I am trying to "mud out" our sweet potatoes by hand---frost and rain right around the corner and I wanted to save as many as I could. ---kinda slow and hard diggin 8 rows 230 feet long by hand! --- mud sticks to the ole feet so using machine is out.