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We get some strong winds here in central Washington. Anything in the ground is gold; potatoes, onions, radishes, and carrots (but have failed a couple times trying to grow garlic) Sturdy vines, crawling plants are preferred; cucumbers, zucchini, spaghetti squash, and cantaloupe grow very well. BTW nice looking Great Pumpkin progress, Ben.

Fruit trees are everywhere in the Kittitas, Yakima, and Wenatchee Valleys. Yield is always impressive; we have an apple, nectarine, plum, pear, and cherry tree in the yard. Jams, lots of jams every September. I make a decent Amaretto Nectarine Jam.

The wind really batters tomatoes, jalapenos, and loose leaf lettuce, so I improvised an old display cabinet for a greenhouse (pic above a few posts). It extends the growing season from late March to October.

Moisture is always a problem. Yes, there are parts of Washington where it does not rain very often. Water at night, or early in the morning. Enjoy the garden :)

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Thanks Ben for the cherry tomato seeds that you sent out to me months ago. The tomatoes are delicious. Is there anything I have to do besides dry out a few of the tomatoes to get seeds to plant next year?

Harvesting seeds is not as easy as drying out a tomato. Here is how I do it and have had great luck.

Cut a few in half and squeeze the slime/seed combo out into a small steel screened strainer. Then rinse as much of the slime off the seeds as possible with just the water flow from your sink faucet. Then take the remaining seeds/goo and put it in a glass or plastic glass. Add around 1/2 cup of purified or spring water. Do not use tap water because of the chemicals in it. Now cover the top of the glass with a paper towel and hold it on with a rubber band. Sit it someplace out of direct sun light for around 5-7 days. It will mold over and stink a little. It needs to do this to get the seeds to separate from the goo. Then get the strainer out again and rinse all the nasty stuff off the seeds. Now spread the seeds out on a double layer of paper towels. Let them sit for a few days to completely dry. Now you have seeds to plant next year.:) This only works with heirloom seeds, the seeds I sent to everyone are an heirloom variety. If done with hybrids there is no way of knowing what type of tomato grow from the seeds.

I got a late start, but the first flower showed up today

Ben,

Thanks for the seed advice. I had dried out a couple of tomatoes last week. I guess I'll save a few more and try out your method to get seeds for next year.

Happy to help. Never tried to dry out a tomato to save seeds. I get 95%+ germination with the way I described and usually use them for 2-3 years and then collect new ones.

Last week, I transplated mine into a big pot. It is doing very well, since I planted July 2.
I am just happy I got 1 plant out of the few seeds I did plant, got the rest for next year.
Ben, thanks for the added fertilizer. I just mixed up my last gallon.
Also, thanks for the tip on drying seeds..Kudos.
I have not any buds/flowers yet, but will inform you once I do and post a pic of it.
I guess, my question is about when I can expect some product?? Its still HOT down here in Georgia..in the 90's but I keep it under the porch and rotate to get the direct sunlight.

doublepost

Because of the great differences in temperature, soil, fertilizer, hours of daylight, and many many other factors it can vary a lot. Best general time frame is you will be able to pick tomatoes 45-60 days after the first flower opens on the plant.

News report: A few days ago...I put a cage in, since it was growing so tall.
And now reporting I got a few flowers/buds popping out.
Won't be too long, you'll see tomatoes!!!!!
I will try to get some phone pics uploaded asap.
I planted it July 2nd and want to share my progress reports down in Ga.
[img]http://i1240.photobucket.com/albums/...pss1nuki6e.jpg[/img]

[img]http://i1240.photobucket.com/albums/...psxjcrqkjj.jpg[/img]

Yum....

News Flash....we got tomatoes forming.
Just re-confirms my suspicions that Ben did not send me pot plants, as they are illegal to grow down here.

There are illegal to grow here also so we hide them between the tomatoes.:eek::D

The last few tomatoes of the season
 

[IMG]http://i138.photobucket.com/albums/q...pswhz5xwwl.jpg[/IMG]

Mike

Update:
This sucker is growing so wild, like a vine. Damn thing is like over 6ft tall, about to touch the ceiling in the porch. I bet I got like 30+ growing. Since the last pics, I had to place 2 long wooden poles to stake them up with.
Yesterday-- 2 of them are just starting to change color to a purplish tint. I was kinda expecting near the end of October.
I about pour a whole gallon jug on it everyday. Once early in the morning, and the other half after dinner.

The fruit on one of my four tangerine trees is ripening faster than the other three trees. The tangerines are still green on three trees, but on this tree many are ready to eat. Very sweet, easy to peel, and few seeds! I've been trying to up my cardio and daily steps by walking around my property some. This morning, every time I walked past the orchard, I grabbed a tangerine!
Larry
http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w...n/IMG_0007.jpg

Anyone have chickens along with a garden. We have two barred rock and two Rhode island red chickens with 1 barred rock rooster

Nope, a while back used to have guineas. One gorgous white one too!!.
At the time, my dad had no clue to take care of them, and they didn't last long. Some animal with beety red eyes snatched them up.
We live in the back-woods, so we got all sorts of creatures: deer (daily), bob-cat, wild dogs/wolfs, raccoons.
Don't care for chicken tho, know some stories about them heads cut off and thrown into mailboxes. Some folks also don't like chickens basting on the clothes lines too.
Love going to Collinsville, Alabama ---Huge flea market and all sorts of stuff and farm aninamls.

We have Coyotes, Possums, Raccoons, and etc, My wife and I got up plenty of times in the AM ,taking care of the hens safety.

Picked 55 pounds of tangerines this morning!
http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w...n/IMG_0064.jpg

That is cool, how many pounds do you get a year off the 4 trees?

Ben this is only the third year of heavy production so my trees are pretty young. But I would guess 75-100 lbs per tree.
Larry

Seeds started too late to get more than one or two ripe ones. Tasty!!


http://i77.photobucket.com/albums/j4...ps0pjeaqeo.jpg

I have had a handful or so down here. Probably was too late for me as well.
I have tons of green ones producing and still.... but not getting enough sunshine I guess to turn color.
I attempted fried-green tomatoes with these and not too shabby.
I did have a issue with the thin skin cracking early on a few.
Last night we dipped into the low 30's. But I keep it under the front porch.

Nice picture, the ripe one in front is making my mouth water.:)

The splitting can be reduced by picking in the morning before watering. For some reason they also rarely split when grown hydroponically. In dirt I would lose approx. 25% to splitting soon after picking.

I had an unbelievably horrible year with my greenhouse. It started out really wet and cloudy so I had a lot of mold and bacterial problems. Then the temperature was either hot or cold with no consistency. I had catastrophic crop failure near the end of July and lost everything.:(

That's too bad. I was wondering how it went for you. We started a blueberry garden and it went well. Not much production this year but we weren't expecting much either. Just letting the bushes take good root and hopefully next summer and Koch more the next we will have huge amounts to pick.

We did have one small veggie garden box. Cucumbers were a flop as was the zucchini. Lots and lots of nice but small Roma tomatoes. My wife loves to use them in canning salsa and sauce. In fact she used some in homemade chili yesterday.

Anyway, one of the more unusual but funny things that happened after our growing season was over. I went down to the garden to clean it up some and get ready for winter and noticed a huge tomato plant growing in our compost box. It was filled with ripe cherry tomatoes. Must have planted and taken root from a tomato I threw in while pruning down during the summer.

Anyway, glad to hear of some of the successes and sorry about the tough year for you Ben. Pretty dry and hot here in Georgia so watering was tough considering how we had to do it. Nothing but an old fashioned hand pump. It took 125 pumps to get approximately 5 gallons of water.:eek:

Seriously. Labor of love I guess.

Drew

That's too bad. I was wondering how it went for you. We started a blueberry garden and it went well. Not much production this year but we weren't expecting much either. Just letting the bushes take good root and hopefully next summer and Koch more the next we will have huge amounts to pick.

We did have one small veggie garden box. Cucumbers were a flop as was the zucchini. Lots and lots of nice but small Roma tomatoes. My wife loves to use them in canning salsa and sauce. In fact she used some in homemade chili yesterday.

Anyway, one of the more unusual but funny things that happened after our growing season was over. I went down to the garden to clean it up some and get ready for winter and noticed a huge tomato plant growing in our compost box. It was filled with ripe cherry tomatoes. Must have planted and taken root from a tomato I threw in while pruning down during the summer.

Anyway, glad to hear of some of the successes and sorry about the tough year for you Ben. Pretty dry and hot here in Georgia so watering was tough considering how we had to do it. Nothing but an old fashioned hand pump. It took 125 pumps to get approximately 5 gallons of water.:eek:

Seriously. Labor of love I guess.

Drew

@almstdone: I know, I have not seen rain in ages, except a bit this morning. Wow the 10% chance. I don't know what area your in-- towards the Mtns or near Athens, but its dry everywhere. We had a few forest fires near our areas but nothing close.
The smoke has/had been aweful and our neightbor burns wood for heat.
As for me watering been not as hard as yours, as I only had 1 plant. But dragging that waterhose around got to be a chore. So, best idea ever was to keep a ol' milk jug around and fill it daily from the sink. Still got tons producing, just not turning color.
And sorry to Hear ben on the issues with the greenhouse. That baby is huge.

R.I.P.
The last cold snap this past weekend took the plant, literally it was in so poor shape and leaves wilted. I had plenty of promising tomatos on it.
So, next project was pepper jelly!!!!!!

Did this include the giant pumpkin project?

Unfortunately yes. The last major hot streak we had that killed about 80% of my crop took the pumpkin out also. That thing was growing at an amazing rate. You could actually see the size increase day to day.

I even covered the entire plant with shade cloth and it was not enough.:(

In a very narrow band we had horrible growing conditions. 20-30 miles away in any direction got enough rain that their crops done OK but the rain just kept missing us. Even the outside gardens sucked this year and you can't hardly kill one of those usually.

Putting the offer of free chocolate cherry tomato seeds out again this year. They need to be started inside 8-16 weeks before you transplant them outside. The time varies by how you start them and how big you want them when you transplant.

Would be happy to answer any seed starting questions.

PM me your address if you would like some this year.

You are not alone. Last year I had collards all winter long. This year I got more creative, planting kale and chard. The streak of below-freezing days crushed everything except one kale plant. Very disappointing.

OH NO!!!!
We are finally getting our 1st snow coming today in Georgia.
Everyone is in frantic mode and schools are ending early.
WHAT!!! Over 1-4 inches of snow.
Only here in Georgia this happens. Urging everyone off the roads by 4pm. Geesh.

As for Kale..never ate any or grew any. I hear it mention a ton on shows, like Dr Oz and Rachael Ray etc.
Really I don't eat many greens at all. What it taste like??? And how to grow it? Anyhting like spinach, cabbage etc.

LOL 1-4 inches of snow is what we call a lite dusting.

To me kale is like spoiled lettuce dusted with dirt. The only thing worse is swiss chard, it is like salty dirty lettuce.

[ATTACH]Attachment 409123[/ATTACH]***** so this spring I came across some leftover seed that were sent to me as part of this thread. So my son and I decided to try the chocolate tomatoes and Chinese eggplant. Both have grow well this summer, unlike back in 2017 when my whole garden was a bust for the year. The picture below is a large 19" what is supposed to be Chinese eggplant but from me reaserch it should be smooth skinned fruit not having raised ridges. Any help with ID?

Sooo much for this old mans memory- it's a (((((Chinese cucumber)))) not eggplant.

It is a Chinese cucumber. I have no idea what the English name is for it. It is not meant to be eaten raw. You cut it up and add it to stir fries.

EDIT: over here it is called a loofah squash or chinese okra.

Photo of seeds from PM

Looks like I accidentally sent you the wrong seeds in the one package.:o I did have the long green chinese eggplant seeds at that time.

Here is my one and only tomato plant this year, a red cherry. It is four and a half foot tall. It has produced a few ripe tomatoes so far, should be able to start picking twice a week the beginning of next month. Once it starts producing good(2 more weeks) it will produce 30-40 ripe tomatoes per week till early/mid October.

Lets see some pics of every ones garden/plants.:)

Picked these today.:D

Just started a tuesday and saturday picking schedule this week. Got 9 tuesday for a total of 21 this week. Should be close to double that next week and for the rest of the season.

my day planted 20-30 maters...2 different kinds --been growing out the ass with these, been already gave 100+ last week, this week made blackberry jam.
I think he did a 2nd run of squash...not sure what else, maybe okra...have to check.

Awesone Chris, how long is your outdoor growing season? Up here we have 4 months, 5 if we get really lucky.

I really miss having the commercial hydroponic greenhouse with all the fresh produce. Don't miss the headache of running it though.

planted better boys & celebrities & cherry tomatoes. Planted 2-3 wks after Easter (after cold frost) Banana pepers, squash, green beans, watermelon(not so good), blackberries.
2nd run squash & okra just recently....I think my dad does collard greens or something before the next cold/winter comes. Lately we dont get much of a winter here, if at all

BTW- i had fun growing your cherry tomato seeds a few yrs ago...It was my 1st time doing something like that, they went crazy. My dad is the one with the thumb.