I will post a full update later. Everything seems to be enjoying the cool down and starting to mature at once. Some of my earlier plants are still failing but some are still looking good along with the later planted plants. I will list those that have stood out in the update. I will say I only grew one paste type this year and it has the best taste of any roma/paste type I've grown. Cody's Paste. Wasn't a heavy producer this year but many weren't. It is growing and blooming again so hoping for a late harvest from it. Jay

I'm in the middle of yanking out some stuff in order to put in fall crops, but we're still harvesting these: tomatoes, peppers (sweet and hot), okra, cantaloupes, watermelons and winter squash (butternut and Tahitian melon, the Seminole isn't ready yet). Oh, and some herbs like rosemary, basil and lemon balm. I just took out the Armenian cukes today because the blister beetles were destroying them. I tried to kill as many blister beetles as I could by snipping them in half with scissors as I was pulling down the Armenian cuke vines off the trellis.

The grasshoppers haven't bothered the okra the last couple of weeks, so it is rebounding nicely from them chewing on it all summer. However, the hoppers have demolished the lima beans and yard long beans. It is hard for bean plants to produce with no leaves. I do think the hopper population in the garden seems to be decreasing some as the weather cools. It is still pretty bad out in the pastures. The ornamental gourds also have started putting out new foliage after appearing all but dead after I quit watering. I guess the rain started falling in the nick of time for them. I didn't water anything in the big garden for 3-4 weeks or so, so really thought everything would give up and die.

The fall beans and southern peas are growing well but aren't blooming yet. I've had them under floating row covers, but just took those off to see if the pests would start attacking them, and so far the pests have not.

The winter squash plants were looking pretty sad after I had stopped watering them in mid-summer, but are rebounding now that we've had some rain. I think the pumpkin plants died. Well, I did water the asparagus plants because this is their first year, and they are fine, and I did water the tomato, pepper and herb plants that are in containers up by the house. In the big garden, after I stopped watering, it looked so sad I didn't even want to step foot into it for a while, and I would just go in there to harvest and then would run back inside into the air conditioning. I am surprised how much some of the plants bounced back with a couple of inches of rain over a period of maybe 4 or 5 weeks. I think the cooler air temps are helping.

Two tomato varieties were blooming and setting new fruit even during the long spell from mid-July through mid-August when our high temps often ranged from 108-112: Phoenix and Cherry Falls. SunGold and Early Girl stalled during that time, but both are flowering and setting fruit again, and a lot of the dwarf cherry tomato plants in containers stalled briefly in the heat, but only for a couple of weeks, and they're once again flowering and setting fruit. The figs in containers have tolerated the heat well and made good growth. We've harvested the breba crop and are waiting for the main crop to ripen.

That's about all I have to report from here. Melons have produced about as heavily this year as they ever have, and I think that's because the cucumber beetles were AWOL here until yesterday.

My tomatoes have been gone a very long time, and the amount of okra that I am getting is insignificant. Yesterday I cooked a ham and roasted vegetables to go with it. Some I picked from the garden and others had been picked previously. The roasted vegetables were summer squash, eggplant, sweet and hot peppers, and onions, and a Yukon Gold baked potato harvested earlier. I guess I am pretty amazed to have anything to harvest after our hot and dry, dry, dry summer.

I have nothing to harvest here. My eggplant is doing ok. It has a flower here and there. My peppers have a pepper or two growing. I already pulled out the tomato and cucumber plants. The rosemary, parsley and oregano are trying to pull through. My asparagus plants have new spears! This is their second year and I thought they had died. But we moved them and with the cooler temps they are coming back to life.

We have only had .7 inch rain in over two months so don't have much left. A small amount of okra--the hoppers almost stripped it and we've quit watering. No big tomatoes for a week as we stopped watering it too. We are still watering Sungold and Black Cherry tomatoes so have a few from them each day, only one plant of each this year so not a huge harvest. The Fuji and Black Twig apples aren't ripe, but the birds are pecking them and hoppers eating the peck holes so every day pick some and put them in the freezer. We've been to Lowe's twice within the last month and each time forgot birdnetting but today will buy it because it's on the list. Otherwise nothing left. We are still watering sweet potatoes but will wait for at least a month to dig.

We have been harvesting Okra, Cluster beans, eggplants, lots and lots of chilli/peppers, cucumbers (armenion and puna), ridge gourds (wining okra), only few cherry tomatoes, and some herbs.

Again tonight picked more carbon than any other tomato. They are on my list to grow again next yr!

I am excited to see all the pretty blooms appearing on my plants.

jcatblum - Carbon was my best tomato this year also, but that is not unusual. I love Carbon.

I dont have much. The tomato plants that I left are blooming a little but no fruit set. The okra is doing OK but I only have a few plants, less than a dozen. The peppers are doing well but I am giving them away. We may try to freeze some in the fall. The Jalapenos are too mild to make jelly from, I hope they heat up a for fall. I harvested one sweet potato, it was small and I could not feel any under the plants. Our water main was repaired Mon. so things are drying out a little. The deer got into my purple hulls and yard long beans last night and did major damage. The water main has leaked for so long and my lawn is so wet the Armadillos are digging every where. I have a live trap set, but only caught one possum. I am about to the point to try a fence charger on them, if they find my yard to unpleasant maybe they will go across the hwy. and play in my son's lawn.

Larry

Larry, I have never made pepper jelly, but I have enjoyed making Cowboy Candy. You can google the recipe. I use it on my hotdogs hamburgers & Lots of other things!!!

Carbon produced really well here this summer, but after I had canned, frozen and dehydrated all the tomtoes we could possibly eat, I took out the 4 rows of plants that produced big slicers and replaced them with southern peas and beans for fall. I guess that was in late July. My Carbon plants were in those rows. I still have about 30 or so tomato plants left--a handful in two separate parts of the big garden--and the rest in containers up by the garage. Of those 30, about half are small container types that produce cherry tomatoes. I tried to leave tomato varieties in containers that produce slicers and bite-sized ones. I removed all the paste tomatoes because I have no desire to can one more tomato this year. Nor do I have room for one more jar anywhere in the kitchen. I still have enough frozen tomatoes (frozen whole and in the form of frozen puree) to make another dozen batches of Annie's Salsa, though that is not necessarily what I'll use them for. However, with the tomato puree, I froze it in the amount used for salsa just in case that's how I decide to use it. This was the best tomato year we've had in ages, probably since 2004 or 2006.

I have made candied jalapenos for several years now, and no matter how many I make we always run out. We give them, along with Annie's Salsa and Habanero Gold, as gifts at Christmas. I usually make about 60-70 jars of candied jalapenos per year. Sometimes, we already have less jars than we need by Christmas and I have to make more in order to have enough to give away as gifts.

Larry, Your peppers need to be grown dry and hot in order for them to have the best flavor. I avoid watering mine as much as possible in the summer, letting them get almost to the wilt point before I water, and I don't water heavily. In extra-hot, extra-dry weather like we had last summer and this summer it can be hard to get them enough water to keep them from wilting but not so much that the flavor is not as pungent as it should be. I also choose jalapeno varieties that have good heat, like Biker Billy, Mucho Nacho and Chichimeca.

Dawn

Still picking lots of squash, peppers,eggplant, and okra and will have corn and purple hull peas coming in soon.

My tomatoes are gone and the lower half is brown and dry. so I pulled out most of those plants. I did get plenty to eat to my hearts content and gave some to friends, but didn't get enough to freeze or dry. I'm Getting plenty of HOT jalapeno peppers and I made a batch of freezer salsa for the first time this year, with more peppers waiting to be processed. My guys love this stuff and I think its great because I don't have to put it in jars!

Since I was in Tulsa at the right time I bought 6 tomato plants from the Tomato Mans Daughter and also planted more purple hull peas and squash in the fall garden to. I have other seed I wanted to plant -- wonders if its to late for Super Sugar Snap peas, the pkg says 65 days for them and looking at the Sequential Planting Calendar that okiedawn has put the web address for us in here, it says "Green Peas" can be planted Aug 15-Sept 1. So is green peas the same as sugar snap? And the other seed I think I will go ahead and plant now is Italian Rose Bean, its also 65-70 days, I planted it in the spring and it was delicious, but didn't freeze any and my guys loved them. I bought a pkg of trombone Squash and Spaghetti Squash for the fall garden but the heat was so bad I didn't want to go out except for picking. Now the cooler weather is here I want to plant every thing !!! ツ
Rita in Washita

OPPS I just saw the note that biradarcm put out on FALL GARDENING and read that and it addresses the questions I had on planting fall garden , so just ignore my above questions. thanks

Dawn, I will need to go out and reduce the flow on my peppers. I only have 4 irrigation tubes in use this year, 2 rows of peppers and 2 rows of sweet potatoes, which are in the south garden. I also need to trim the sweet potatoes, they are covering about half or my peppers. I am concerned about my sweet potatoes, afraid I will be all vine and very few potatoes. I was thinking that by this time of the year I would have sweet potatoes sticking up out of the ground. All my sweet potatoes have very heavy foliage.

If we dont get rain this weekend I will have to start watering again.

I will have to do some googling on cowboy candy and candied jalapenos. Much of the stuff I read about on this forum is new to Madge and me.

Larry

Rita, The cooler weather makes me want to plant everything too. I tend to be a gambler and just "go for it" even if the DTMs make me think that some of the stuff I plant may not get to produce. We could get lucky and have a long, mild fall and get great production. Honestly, just seeing green stuff growing will make me happy even if it doesn't produce much that's edible. After a long, hot, mostly-brown summer, green plants are a treat for the eyeballs.

I was out in the garden yesterday talking to tiny new watermelons and cantaloupes urging them to grow and get big so we can be harvesting them before the end of September. It has been a wonderful melon year, and I hate for it to end. Fall melons are risky though, as they need heat and lots of sun to develop the best flavor. However, our local forecasters have us going up around 97 degrees by the end of next week, so clearly we still have some hot days left, which is great for the melons, if not for the people.

Larry, Candied jalapenos and "Cowboy Candy" (and I hate to even use that name because a family-owned company has it trademarked and goes after people using their trademarked name) are just pickled jalapeno peppers made with a bread-and-butter pickle recipe. I use the bread-and-butter pickle recipe from the website of the National Center for Home Food Preservation and just substitute an equal amount of jalapeno pepper slices for the cucumbers. I'll link that recipe below. I've also made them using the Mrs. Wages Bread-and-Butter Pickle Mix bought on the canning aisle at Wal-Mart. When I use the NCHFP recipe, I do not use the lime. I don't find it necessary.

I've made the candied jalapenos for 4 or 5 years now. Tim gives them as Christmas gifts to the police officers who work his shift and they are very popular gifts. We usually give them a bag with 2 to 4 jars of home-canned goodies, and their favorites are always Annie's Salsa, Candied Jalapenos and Habanero Gold jelly.

Dawn

Here is a link that might be useful: Bread and Butter Pickle Recipe for Candied Jalapenos

some pics taken this morning; Photos 1-21

Here is a link that might be useful: Garden in August 25: Photos 1-21

I didn't realize cowboy candy was a trademark item! Sorry! I found the recipe a few yrs ago & have enjoyed it since. The recipe I use is close to the one Dawn posted, just a few differences.

Chandra, What a wonderful yard and garden you have! I always enjoy looking at your photos so much. It is great to see the family out enjoying the yard and garden so much. I cannot believe how much the children are growing! It must be all that healthy, organic food you're growing and feeding them.

Jcatblum, It is okay. There's no reason you would know that info about the CC. I came across it accidentally one day and was reading about how vigorously they protect their trademark, so just thought I would mention it here. That's been several years ago, so I don't even know if all that is still going on or even if they still are in businessm but it is likely they still own the copyright to the name. I'd hate to see anyone here invoke their wrath, that's all. : )

Most candied jalapeno recipes that are canned are fairly similar, though there's some differences in spices and all sometimes and those changes (since spices are dried) don't affect the safety of the finished product.

I've heard of some people making candied jalapenos by adding sugar to commercially canned jalapenos, but I have no idea if that is safe or how it works out in the long term. As fast as we eat peppers, even when prepared this way, I think we'd eat them up before any food safety issues could develop.

Dawn

What am I harvesting? MUD! Yeah. Well, I'm still working on the whole live plant thingy.