This has been the best season ever for my garden! I am growing Beans-Rattlesnake, Cherokee Trail of Tears, Mennonite Purple Stripe, Cherokee Wax, Kentucky Wonder, Kentucky Wonder Wax, and Long Beans. Not alot of all the varieties trying to get my seed stash resupplied on some. Tomatoes-Mr Stripey, Brandywines, Cherokee Purple, Juliet, Sweet 100, Roma, Parks Whopper, Better Boy Watermelon- Moon and Stars and Tenderweet Orange Squash- Grey striped zuke and Trombocinno Pumpkins- Musqee de Provence Melons-Charentais Bright Lights Swiss Chard Collard Greens Cucumbers-Lemon, National Pickling, Armenian, and some other pickling kind Onions-1015s, Red onions, and some other sweet white Peppers-Jalapenos, Big Bertha Bells, Sweet Cherry, Habanero Eggplant-Black Beauty and Japanese Broccoli Cabbage-Red and Green Corn-Country Gentleman Okra-Emerald Flowers-Sunflowers, Nastursiums, Morning Glories, Asters, Petunias, Moonflowers, Black-eyed susan vine I just can't believe how amazing everything is doing this year, it's soooo awesome!!!

tracydr, we have been having a long cool spring so this year we got peas until May. This is unusual, April is more normal for the last of the peas here. Last weekend I harvested the last ones and took out the plants (and dried pods for seed) and the last of the favas. We ate some of the favas and saved some for seed for fall planting. I am growing more peas and favas for next season too! I loved both. I got myself a second fava variety (I was on a trip to southern Europe and got some there) and plan on growing more shelling peas. More work but we loved the fresh sweet flavors, and so versatile! I also plan on growing sugar snaps and snow peas as well, but less snow peas. Last night I harvested the last of the lettuce. It will make two very large salads, they will be the last lettuce based salads of the season. I cannot make myself get them at the grocery store anymore, not the same! Fortunately the cucumbers are here coming to the rescue, and we have already been enjoying them in salads. Last night I also harvested a handful of stupice tomatoes and one Omar lebanese, plus a few sungolds. Lot and lots of carrots too! And a few beets as well. When we returned from the trip we found heaps of artichokes to be harvested (made raviolis, yum!), a whole basket of sungold cherry tomatoes, huge cucumbers, lots of bush valentine green beans and a few runner beans (we pickled the beens). I also harvested all the radicchio (grilled it), and a bunch of kale and other brassicas. A nice surprise was finding pretty large volunteer amaranth, which was also harvested as greens. The trip was nice, but it sure is easier to go and harvest every day or every other day, rather than trying to get all the produce after a three week absence! (I will not even say anything about the weeds..........)

whynotmi, here ya go. The PEOPLE here are the best search engine!!! LOL Black Forest Preserves 6 1/2 cups granulated sugar 1/3 cup sifted unsweetened cocoa powder 3 cups firmly packed coarsely chopped pitted sweet black cherries 1/2 cup lemon juice 2 pouches liquid pectin (each 3 oz) 4 TBLS. amaretto liqueur or 1/2 teaspoon/2 ml almond extract 1. Prepare canner, jars and lids. 2. In a small bowl, combine sugar and cocoa powder. Stir well and set aside. 3. In a large, deep stainless steel saucepan, combine sherries and lemon juice. Stir in reserved cocoa mixture. 4. Over high heat, stirring constantly, bring to a full rolling boil that cannot be stirred down. 5. Stir in pectin. Boil hard, stirring constantly, for 1 minute. 6. Stir in amaretto liqueur. 7. Remove from heat and skim off foam. 8. Leave 1/4 inch headspace in jars. 9. Process 10 minutes in BWB. Makes about seven 8 ounce jars. And, no I didn't go pick cherries. I am TRYING to only put up things we actually LIKE! :+) MY DH wasn't all that thrilled with the "different" kinds of jam I make in the last two years. Lemon-Lime Marmalade Apple Pie Jam Banana Nut Jam Black Forest Preserves Vanilla Fig Preserves (thank you Jessy! And I don't care if he doesn't like this one...I DO, more for me!! He actually does like it though) He usually just wants Grape, Strawberry, Raspberry or Blackberry. Just one flavor, no combos. Boring! But he eats more of it than I do, so I guess I really should consider THAT!! Ha ha ha. Deanna

I did have serious rt nematode damage for the last 2 years. I did a lot of research, added a lot of soil and peat moss and compost to a new veggie patch, but that wasn't really successful.Did soil solarization, not happy with the results. Planted french marigolds, had them tilled in, no results. Later I found out they don't help against root knot, but against sting nematodes. Great! So more research was done and I found some university articles about the covercrop Crotalaria juncea L. This is being used commercially with nematode issues. So this summer I had and still have this plant growing. One veggie patch got tilled in with the plant leaves so far and the tomatoes I sadly had to pull (yellow leaf curl virus due to ficus white fly) showed no damage to the roots. All but one plant on the far corner had some little galls. And the plants did grow much better than in spring. Back to the topic: I grow Amaranthus dubius without having nematode issues. Broccoli did work fine as well.