Wow, my cucumbers never turn green. They also died early on when I left my husband in charge of the garden for 4 days... Looks like you might have some pickles in your future?

Spotless produce! Are those peppers waxed?

You could come garden in my area, where I can't ever seem to grow a productive cuke plant. Zukes do fine. I don't know what the deal is.

I just canned 12 quarts of beans to add to the 24 quarts already on the shelf. This from a 25 foot row of pole beans. More to come. I eat green beans from the garden every week of the year, mostly the ones I've canned. In October I collect some seeds for the next year. The plants also fix their own nitrogen from air thru their roots. What more could you ask for?

Yes I can see :-) How do you plan to handle the cucumbers? Pickling? I always wonder how people handle cucumber overage because I don't know how to do canning.

And what is that on the left of the first picture? Squash? How big is it?

I used to swim in a few buckets of heirloom tomato harvest every day. This year I can only drool over other people's pictures.

Hello all,

mjtwomail - I have actually already pickled two quarts of polish dills, six pints of regular dills and another 8 half-pints of bread and butter. These cucumbers are slicers, being too large for pickling. As for them, we are simply eating our way through them and giving away those that we can't eat, be it garden helpers, the local food bank or friends and family.

bluebirdie - The squash in that pic is zuchini. They are very large, too large for fresh eating. I slice them in half, scoop out the soft pulp, and shred the rest for baking. My daughter just loves chocolate chip zuchini bread.

tcstoehr - Those beans are a one pass harvest of about 12 or so Contender bush bean plants. I left the younger ones to mature a little more, and once the next 8 plants come 'online' I should be looking at about four or five times that amount. Next year I am going to try some pole beans to make the harvesting a bit easier on the knees. :-) Any suggestions?

pnbrown - The peppers are not waxed, simply washed. They really, really turned out this year. Had only a few lost to bugs until the sunflowers and cosmos around the peppers started to flush out. Since then, the plants and fruit haven't been touched. As far as the cukes go, I seem to be blessed with a knack for them :-)

I think cukes like heavier soil than the sandy stuff I have, melons too.

Regarding pole beans, I like Romano.

I am having a pretty good watermelon year. Sometimes they can come in about the same time....like I have the last part of a 36½ pounder, a 45 pounder, a 33½ pounder, a 25½ pounder, and a smaller seedless in the house with several more likely ripe enough out there. Cantaloupes are bunching up too.....whew!

I'd like to know your secret to growing cucumbers. Mine peter out after about 6 weeks. I've been growing smaller ones - Diva and Lemon. This year, lost them to wilt.

Best pole bean of all is Fortrex, available from Johnny's. They produce long, slim, very tasty beans over an incredibly long period - just keep picking up to frost.

That's how my garden USUALLY is! I'm usually up to my knees in tomatoes, zuks, cukes and beans. Making sauce freezing etc.
This year with our almost constant fog and cool weather I've gotten several sungold tomatoes (cherries) that I usually eat right in the garden, a couple of stunted bloody butchers and have some on the plants along with flowers just in case we get some heat in Aug/Sept/Oct. I've picked 2 cukes, 2 lemon cukes, 2 bell peppers (both eaten up by something) and about 15-20 beans, not even enough for a meal!!!!!!
Such a yukky/cold/foggy year! It's been horrible! NT

Maybe if I garden long enuf, I'll figure it out!

Just a few years ago, we had a very cool, wet, windy spring. Melons died and the squash & cucumbers did very poorly even after it warmed up with a fairly normal summer. Tomatoes came on to have a bumper crop!

This year, we had a very cool, wet, windy spring. The cucumbers are wound up for what looks like a tremendous crop! Melons and squash are doing okay. Tomatoes? There are barely a few . . .

Posted by oldroser
Best pole bean of all is Fortrex . . .

I think it was 'roser who convinced me to try Fortex about 10 years ago. I know that a number of others have greatly appreciated that variety. Not to my taste but they may have had a productive season despite that. (Should probably know better than to argue with 'roser, tho'. ;o)

The beans here aren't having the bestest of years, either! Still, the bush beans I usually grow did just okay, seem to have survived harvesting and should come back for a 2nd crop. Another chance should allow them time to grow a little!

I have grown (what might be) Oregon Giant since that swing and miss with Fortex. I like the flavor and appreciate the size and long season. This year, I tried something different and planted them in mid-July . . . they'll have to hurry and are spiraling up their teepee. I'll just have to see. At least, they missed having that difficult June to beat them up.

Steve