Gardening

Dragged our tomato’s out of freezer today and made tomato juice , this was 12 kg of tomatoes

We do all the work on hubs work bench covered with newspapers …in the shed especially tomatoes they so messy ( I’ve got a mainly white kitchen ) can you imagine red tomato specks all over white kitchen bench …nah far easier to screw up old newspaper and chuck in recycle bin after ….. @Don Alaska I didn’t have one tomato with blossom end rot this year

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Has anyone here had experience growing and eating chayote ?
If you have not seen one, it is a weird looking little squash thing that kind of looks like an ugly pear. I have not tasted one (yet!), so I can’t tell you what it tastes like, but I bought two of them to try.
One is to eat and one is to grow a chayote vine.

I looked at some of the videos for growing them, and you plant the whole chayote, after first letting it sprout, and then it grows into a vine and about 3 months later, you have lots of chayotes.
I thought one of the videos I watched a while back said that it could come back up the next year, but I have to look and see if I can find that video again.

Anyway, I found a kind of stirfry video for it that looked pretty simple. I can’t chop like this person did, but I was thinking that either spiralizing it or even shredding might work out somewhat similar.

 
Has anyone here had experience growing and eating chayote ? If you have not seen one, it is a weird looking little squash thing that kind of looks like an ugly pear. I have not tasted one (yet!), so I can’t tell you what it tastes like, but I bought two of them to try. One is to eat and one is to grow a chayote vine.

I looked at some of the videos for growing them, and you plant the whole chayote, after first letting it sprout, and then it grows into a vine and about 3 months later, you have lots of chayotes.
I thought one of the videos I wanted a while back said that it could come back up the next year, but I have to look and see if I can find that video again.

Anyway, I found a kind of stirfry video for it that looked pretty simple. I can’t chop like this person did, but I was thinking that either spiralizing it or even shredding might work out somewhat similar.

 
One side of my house there is a bed that gets a little sun in the morning but it's Shady most of the day. I found this perennial plant that loves the shade that had interesting flowers so I bought three Hellebores.

2 died within a month. The remaining one I nursed and it finally after 2 years started looking like the plant you see in a catalog.

I just came across a photo of it. The fire we had destroyed it, I don't have the desire these days to try to replace it. The photos reminded me of the enjoyment I got out of looking at it flowering.

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I finally finished planting peppers. I am cutting back and have only started 288 pepper plants, but that is more than most people. Of course, most of those will be sold. Tomatoes and beets will start next week. Lots of rosemary started. It doesn't overwinter here, so it is an annual. Thyme is also started along with onions, leeks, and celery.
 
Don Alaska said:
I finally finished planting peppers. I am cutting back and have only started 288 pepper plants, but that is more than most people. Of course, most of those will be sold. Tomatoes and beets will start next week. Lots of rosemary started. It doesn't overwinter here, so it is an annual. Thyme is also started along with onions, leeks, and celery.
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Do you plant different varieties of peppers?
I only started a couple of pepper plants this year. The variety is called Jupiter I've never tried them before.
 
Tony Page said:
Do you plant different varieties of peppers?
I only started a couple of pepper plants this year. The variety is called Jupiter I've never tried them before.
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Oh yeah, I plant around 30 different varieties of peppers. About the same number of tomato varieties. I have never grown Jupiter that I recall. I assume it is a sweet variety, right? I am trying two different types of habaneros this year. They are difficult to grow here, but people want to try them. Jalapenos are also popular and I grow three or four varieties of those.
 
Don Alaska said:
Oh yeah, I plant around 30 different varieties of peppers. About the same number of tomato varieties. I have never grown Jupiter that I recall. I assume it is a sweet variety, right? I am trying two different types of habaneros this year. They are difficult to grow here, but people want to try them. Jalapenos are also popular and I grow three or four varieties of those.
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It is a sweet variety blocky 4 lobed 4.5x4.5 in., photo shows red and green fruit. It's a Spanish variety. Purchased seed at dollar tree. I hope they germinate. Package says days to germinate 10-14. I planted them on February 28th.
 
Yvonne Smith said:
Has anyone here had experience growing and eating chayote ?
If you have not seen one, it is a weird looking little squash thing that kind of looks like an ugly pear. I have not tasted one (yet!), so I can’t tell you what it tastes like, but I bought two of them to try.
One is to eat and one is to grow a chayote vine.

I looked at some of the videos for growing them, and you plant the whole chayote, after first letting it sprout, and then it grows into a vine and about 3 months later, you have lots of chayotes.
I thought one of the videos I watched a while back said that it could come back up the next year, but I have to look and see if I can find that video again.

Anyway, I found a kind of stirfry video for it that looked pretty simple. I can’t chop like this person did, but I was thinking that either spiralizing it or even shredding might work out somewhat similar.

Click to expand...
Please look for Mexican cooking information. Chayote does very well in stews and stir fry’s.
 
I started some tomatoes yesterday. It was mostly the longer-season varieties. I started New Zealand and Malabar spinach today along with sorrel. The big tomato plant will start tomorrow since I have to use the heat mats and many of those are in use elsewhere. I also ordered some mason bees since they worked out well last year and seemed to improve pollination in our orchards. For many years, I kept honey bees, but that just got to be too much work of old people in Alaska. I sold most of my supplies to one of our sons who has started raising bees in recent years. He was one of my helpers when we had bees here.

I think my wife will be planting spinach and lettuce in the big greenhouse today. Although she is much smaller than I am, she has an easier time wading through the snow to get over there. I started a tradition of planting spinach in that greenhouse more than 20 years ago. I seed the beds then cover them with snow. As the greenhouse warms, the snow melts and waters the beds. We have some lettuce that reseeds itself in that greenhouse and we have discovered that we can sell entire flats of growing lettuce pretty easily. Spinach does not grow well here after May since the days are too long and it bolts, so starting it under snow in March works out well. I am trying New Zealand spinach and Malabar spinach to see if they will grow well in summer here. I tried New Zealand once or twice before, but I didn't put a lot of effort into it. This year I will try harder.
 
Jake Smith said:
Planted this garden today at 4pm. Squash, Limas, bell peppers, Rutgers, cherry tomatoes, two rows sweet corn, scallion onions, creole onions, water melons, iceberg lettuce, Romaine lettuce, butternut squash, yellow squash, Limas, beef steak tomatoes, okra, bell peppers, zucchini,large cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, Rutgers, and etc etc etc. :)


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Looks great even with nothing green yet. Mine is under a foot of new snow.
 
Tomatoes, tomatillos and ground cherries are now planted. We are cutting back on the amount of plants, but I have a few new varieties and have dropped a few as well. I hope none of our customers are disappointed since we will not have nearly as many plants this year. It will be first come, first served before the plant sale ,ad hopefully we will sell whatever is left. I am just too old to keep this up and my wife will be in San Diego helping with the great-grandson for two weeks in May when things are really busy, so I will be without my helper as well. Next year we may forget gardening as well so we can take the summer off and travel some. We'll see what happens between now and then.
 
Kate Ellery said:
Dragged our tomato’s out of freezer today and made tomato juice , this was 12 kg of tomatoes

We do all the work on hubs work bench covered with newspapers …in the shed especially tomatoes they so messy ( I’ve got a mainly white kitchen ) can you imagine red tomato specks all over white kitchen bench …nah far easier to screw up old newspaper and chuck in recycle bin after ….. @Don Alaska I didn’t have one tomato with blossom end rot this year

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We don't get physical newspaper or phone books anywhere around here any more and I am running low. If you want to recycle yours, let me know. I use them in cages for baby chicks and my new guinea pig. ;)
 
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