Backyard Vegetable Garden

For the past two years we have had record numbers of large juicy tomatoes in our little garden. Not so this year. Not sure what's up, but they're just not faring so well this time around. On the other hand the squash is doing fine and I managed to can my first batch today. I know it's not recommended to can yellow squash but have never had a problem with it and intend to continue doing so. (The FDA, like other government agencies, is paranoid.)

Looks like we'll get a good bit of okra as well. Just not quite yet. Peppers, too, come later for the most part.

Those tomatoes, though. Mmmph. Ken and I are wondering if we might be better off to yank a couple of the plants and put some new ones in their holes. At least we have enough now to be enjoying our favorite blt's and tomato slices for sides and salads. Can't complain, really.

Corie, I'm so jealous of you and your lemon and lime trees. I would love to have some in my yard.

 

My father in law said that we are lucky to have an abundance of lemon (since it is expensive in the market). What we could do is put a slice of lemon in the pitcher of water and that would be a good healthy drink. Whenever we would harvest lemon, steak would be the menu since lemon is a good marinade for steak, together with soy sauce. Neighbors would usually peek in the gate and ask if there is a ripe lemon. Yes, we share the harvest with some neighbors here.

As I had promised, here is the unripe lemon in our backyard garden.

 

Our extension garden is the vacant lot beside our property. We also have some crops there but the first and foremost is the easiest to take care of - sweet potato a.k.a. camote. This camote is a root crop which can be harvested after 6 months from planting. But aside from the tuber, the most popular benefit from camote is the young leaves called camote tops. It is the poor man's vegetable that is boiled and dipped in soy sauce... a good dish.

Here is the shot of our camote plantation.

 

Allie, I think yellow squash makes better pickles than cucumbers. We also slice or chop squash and freeze it. I found a recipe for squash cake that is delicious.

Corie, we grew so many sweet potatoes last year we probably won't need to plant any for several years.

 

We dug our potatoes yesterday. A bumper crop. They say you are supposed to average 10 pounds of potatoes for every pound you plant. I planted 2 1/2 pounds and we got over 40 pounds. Some nice big ones too. I noticed as we dug that the beds were full of big fat earthworms.

 

Wow, that's a lot of harvest you have there. If that were here, I'm sure the kids would be bombarded with french fries everyday, hahahaaa. We had tried test planting potatoes 2 times but the plant did not look good. Perhaps the soil is the problem.

Let's move on the our plantation of cassava that we are looking for an October harvest if the typhoons will not intervene with the growth. Last year, typhoon Glenda had inundated our cassava crops and nothing was saved. All we had was the few cassava planted in our backyard. By the way, our crop is planted in the vacant lot beside our property. Here is the photo of our cassava crop...

 

We bought a mamacita banana sapling for $3 in a garden nursery. After 8 months, it bore fruits already. And to consider that it was ravaged by last year's typhoon, it is a sturdy banana that came from Thailand. It has 13 clusters and each cluster has a minimum of 20 bananas. You can imagine how heavy is the entire bunch. It took 3 people to harvest it to prevent from falling on the ground and damaging the unripe bananas.

Here is the photo of that mamacita banana from Thailand...

 

Have you heard of pandan? It is a plant that has aromatic leaves. The leaves have many uses like flavoring of gelatin drink or flavoring the rice. The primary use of pandan here is in cooking the native snacks. The aroma enhances the attraction of the snack especially to the young customers.

But there is another use for the pandan leaves that only few people know. We put it in a basket or a net or maybe inside a stocking hose and hang it in the rear view mirror of the car. That is now an air freshener of the car. Neat eh?

Here is our pandan plant...

 

Only managed to put in a small garden and since then it has rained buckets and turned cold, We have strawberries and blackberries, spinach, lettuce collards, green beans and an assortment of herbs. I had wanted to do tomato but in a way I am glad that I didn't get to because it has rained so much. We do have an abundance of dandelion greens which I feed to my turtles. If the weather clears up before the 4th I may do some container tomato and try some pumpkin, that is if I can keep the rabbits away.

 

@Ken Anderson we are also experiencing slight variations in season here. Most crops are out of schedule, either early or late in harvesting. Vegetables do not fare well unlike in the past years although the harvest is quite okay. Our cassava are still looking good which we hope to harvest in October.

Our dragon fruit has started to grow buds and are already blooming by this month which is about 2 months early based on the past years. So I guess the dragon fruits will all be harvested before September which is the usual peak of fruiting. As what my sister remarked, the plants are being fooled by the climate change.

Here is the blooming dragon fruit vine...

 

We harvested our small corn crop and put them in the freezer. Onions and potatoes are drying in the shed. We're getting cucumbers and Swiss chard. Beets are almost ready for canning. First time ever to not plant okra but we still have plenty canned and in the freezer. Green beans have plenty of vines but no beans yet.

 

Corie -- how long dose it take for growing dragon fruit I just started some small plant and they seem to grow very slowly.
Where I live it is very dry and mainly we have trees mango, limes, oranges, guava, bananas, and pomegranate..
The soil gets to hot for most vegetables and I am planning to start hydroponic system to grow my vegetables.

 

This is the first year since I was a kid that I've had an actual vegetable garden. I've always had perennials and annuals but my yard has never been sunny enough until now. Being at least somewhat of a beginner I put in two different varieties of tomato and pepper, snap peas, green beans, carrots, cucumbers and a bunch of perennial herbs.

I'm pleased to report everything except the peppers are doing well. We've had a ton of rain since planting and I suspect that's the problem. Some of the leaves are yellowing and falling off and the plants have hardly gained any size. I'm fairly sure the problem isn't nitrogen since everything else is lush and lovely. Does anyone have any feedback or suggestions? The peppers are a part of the master plan for late summer salsa and gazpacho!