On This Day in 2015. That's not a saucer under that tomato, its a dinner plate.

We're up to 40 pints of salsa. It looks like we're probably gonna hit 56 and maybe go over 60 pints.

Here I am, slaving away at the grind. I feel like this is all I've been doing lately.

2 1/2 inches of rain here in SE OKlahoma. My garden is so happy!

Hey Lynn , remember what the weight was of that tomato?

And what variety?

Rick

Rick, I don't recall the weight, but it had to be in the 3# range. A slice would easily cover an entire slice of bread.

Its Big Beef. 90% of what I grow is Big Beef and I've done that for quite a few years now. I get the Big Beef seed from Johnny's Select.

Interesting Twitter thread on bees. Says there are multiple species of bees. Makes the point that honey bees are not in trouble, just the opposite, there's too many people keeping honey bees. And there's not enough flowers for all the species of bees and that's hurting others species that are in trouble.

So to help bees, plant flowers. I know there were a jillion honey bees on my flowering basil last year. And this spring they were all over my flowering cilantro.

Twitter thread about bees

Lynn, that is an amazing tomato!

And...there's anti-honeybee groups now. I still would like to keep honeybees because I like honey. We have all sorts of bees on our flowers. I am trying to grow a lot more natives for the native bees. But, I still like honey. I don't know enough about any of it right now, tho.

The harvest continues to roll in.

I was able to bread and freeze 2 large bags of okra last night. I do like it pre-breaded for future ease. And I cooked up a batch to eat with dinner last night. I used King Arthurs bread flour. It was a good choice. Very tasty.

Also got a bag of corn in the freezer. Rick got his corn prepared for canning, which we will do tonight.

It will be a busy day/night. After work, I'm going to my neighbor's to pick her cucumbers and trading them for some of our eggs. Then, getting the jars washed and ready for the corn. Then, getting the corn into jars. At that point I'm going to try to fix dinner while Rick watches the canners in the shop. The Whole 30 thing starts today. And then squeeze in all the other chores. I need to grab the okra and blushing tomatoes.

I'm already tired just thinking about it.

My neighbor and I are supposed to pick blackberries tomorrow. I'm wondering what the mud situation is back there. We usually take her cart, which is pulled by 2 miniature horses, to the blackberry thicket.

Larry, did you get some rain?

Jennifer that sounds like a great neighbor

The thing is, we should think of honey bees as livestock. They aren't native, and didn't evolve with our native plants. The problem is there aren't enough NATIVE plants to support native bees (all native insects). All of them visit non-native flowers but our native insects may not be getting the nutrition they need. Personally, there are flowers I love and would grow regardless, but we need to grow more natives to support the native insects. BTW, insects support the birds we like in our yards. All baby birds are fed insects. And even seed eaters won't pass up a juicy caterpillar. Some of the celebrities supporting honey bees haven't researched enough. I will step off my soapbox now.

Yes, we've had a lot of rain, this 6" long crawdad was in gutter in front of my house this morning. I've no idea where he came from or how he got there. There's a little pond across the school yard about a 1/2 mile away as the crow flies, but he'd had quite a journey to get to where I found him. But he was going with the flow down the street.

I am so excited my brother bought a place in Burneyville Oklahoma. The long driveway to his place does not belong to him but the neighbor said that he could have all the blackberries he wants. II am going picking on Thursday or Friday. It is about 100 foot row.

Kim, that is so exciting. I'm excited about getting blackberries too. I didn't get any last year. We are supposed to go today but just got a lot more rain dumped on us (not complaining). I'm going to check with my neighbor to see if we can still go. She knows the area back there a lot better than I do. I wonder if it will be too muddy. It's still raining lightly here. What are you going to make with your berries?

Kim, I do have a lot of great neighbors. We're really good about sharing and trading our garden stuff with each other. (They're not all great, tho. Lol)

Lynn, that's crazy! My grandparents lived somewhere near May and just north of 59th street. There was a creek--it was a concrete type of creek--in their neighborhood. My cousins and I used to get crawdads after rains. Hopefully the parents released them when we were finished with them. Knowing my grandpa, he ate them.

There are cucumbers chilling in the refrigerator. I would like to make pickles today...but I don't want to get it started until I know if we're going for blackberries or not.

There's still okra to tend to. But, my co-workers have indicated an interest in it, so I will be taking a giant bag to work on Thursday. Even, so I have some older okra from last week that needs to be put into the freezer.

A couple of days ago, I started some seed from my saved seed. I think I did Abe Lincoln, Ark Traveler and TBB. Maybe German Johnson too. There's a couple more jars still fermenting. I picked a beautiful Abe Lincoln last night. Fully ripe on the vine, so I will be saving seed from it too. I have them all labeled with various notes. We'll see if they pop up. Not sure they'll have time to make fruit. That might depend on the first frost. Or not. But, either way, it will be a test to see if they sprout at all.

Just waiting on the Dr. Wyche....

Any helpful hints about saving pepper seed? I'm going to save seed from my Craig's Grande jalapeno.

I forgot to empty the 5 inches of rain from our gauge. And it's a 5 inch gauge. SO, I have no idea how much rain we've gotten this morning.

Is this July crazy or what?!

A friend at work who hates any weather under a 100 degrees, was complaining about the rain. But, some guy he watches on YouTube predicted this. He said the same guy said we would have a bad winter too. We'll see, I guess.

Chicks are growing and Momma Hen Gwennie is a great momma. Baby has gone broody again. She always does this at the worst time. I'm trying to figure out what to do about her. I would like a couple more chicks. But, finding a place for everyone is a pain. Five more young layers next year would be really good to have. Baby is tiny bantam easter egger hen. She has never had chicks because her broodiness is never convenient. She is broody very early in the spring and then isn't when all the other hens are....and then she is again after everyone already has been given chicks.

Well...I should figure out if we're going for berries today or not.

Have a good day, Friends.

Lynn, that is a very impressive tomato. I like the Beefmaster tomato also, I even started some this year, but I think they ended up in my neighbors garden. I also started some Beef Maestro that I have been impressed with. So far the Mrs. Maxwell has been the most impressive in my garden. This is my first year with these two tomatoes, but I hope to grow them both next year. I will have to order more seed of the Beefmaster, but I am thinking that I will only start the seeds I need, this deal of teaming with my neighbor is not working for me, I cant work like he does, and I feel guilty because I cant keep up, but I can pretty much do what I need to do for my small gardens.

I was at the Mena, Arkansas, Farmers Co-op yesterday, and just had to check their seed supply, a few packs of Better Boy is all of the tomato seeds they had, the seed racks were almost empty. I bought a pack of the Better Boy for $4.99. I really did not need the seeds, but I wanted to have them on hand. I will also be ordering Beefmaster, and Mrs. Maxwell seeds online if I can get them.

I have a berry thicket on the back side of the place, it is just a pain for me, it is about 3/4 of an acre that is hard to get to and a pain to brush hog. I even tried to dig the black berry plants out of my garden, they were a pain also, it seem as tho every critter on the place was standing in line waiting for them to ripen, and I was always the last in line.

Larry, in 2021 I lost all my Big Beef plants due to a late April freeze and had to buy plants from Marcum Nursery. And I had to buy Beefmaster because I could not find Big Beef. Those plants produced very well and it opened my mind to growing something different than Big Beef. The Beefmaster made some huge tomatoes also.

So last year, I tried to source Beefmaster seed and it was hard to find. I found some with Totally Tomatoes. I was not happy with them, at all. But there were other factors last year, mainly weather.

I could not even find the plants at Marcum. They're grower in Kansas, who I can't think of their name right now, no longer grew Beefmaster.

But I'm done with opening my mind, I went back to what I do. This is the best tomato year I've ever had and weather is probably the only reason. But I gotta wonder if enlarging my cages helped the plants. And the blight is not as bad this year.

My daily " On This Day " pics today, shows the BLT we made from the giant tomato in the pic above. It completely covered the slice of bread. I love BLT's, haven't had enough of them this year but they're not as good on the keto bread.

Lynn, I will check and see if I have any Big Beef seeds, if not I will order some of those also. I love growing, and experimenting with different things, that is how I wound up with the Mrs. Maxwell seeds, which we had for lunch today, so far it is a keeper.

I must down size next year, but the Mrs. Maxwell, Big Beef, Beefmaster, Beef Maestro and Roma are some I want to grow. I think Madge has her list as well. We say that we dont need any more than 12 tomato plants, but we have a hard time shortening our list. I expect that we will continue to plant too many tomatoes and keep giving them away. I just took 3 sacks of produce up to our neighbor, and got a jar of muscadine jelly.

The size of tomatoes you post are just what my wife wants, but I don't think I have ever grown a tomato that large.

I don't get the BLT's that I would like, but with my heart condition that I probably a good thing. My wife does not eat pork, and I hate to bring something into the house that she thinks that she should not eat ( she try to follow the Old Testament dietary laws )

Just did a little canning of field corn from the over east garden.

Gotta get it before the grasshoppers do.

Rick

Rick, the corn really looks nice, I know that is a lot of work, you must be like my neighbor, he works all the time also.

We tried to pick all the tomatoes that were turning, hoping that they would not split. We must have got near an inch of rain today.

I've always thought cracking of tomatoes was because of too much water at one time. Even with all the rains we've had, I'm not getting any cracking on tomatoes. Don't understand that, but I won't complain.

Rick, my dad loved to grow sweet corn and I always enjoyed visiting him and mom this time of year. Got some of the best meals I ever had in my life ............ sweet corn, garden tomato, purple hulled peas, wow.

I gotta go get into the abyss and pick tomatoes before it gets too hot. I've been getting three 5 gallon buckets every other day. I actually hope its only 2 today. This has to slow down at some time. But with this weather, some of the plants are setting fruit.

Yuck! It is muggy out there. I saw the clouds this morning and was expecting a cool morning when I stepped out to do my morning chores. Nope.

I was only able to get a quart of berries yesterday but we are going back on Friday. There were two children with us, so I wasn't going to fight them for the best berries. lol!

Yeah, Larry, blackberry thickets are a pain for sure. And painful. This area will eventually be taken over by them. They spread for sure. However, there were some interesting wildflowers back there. I will take an extra container and try to get some of them. Moore Public Schools supposedly owns that property. There's a pond back there and it's very wild. My neighbor (who I went with) said that when her husband was a kid, the school allowed them to put cattle back there. My neighbor is mid to late 30's so it was awhile ago. But, the blackberry thickets are taking over for sure.

I'm trying to think what the school will eventually do with that property. Maybe a junior high? Seems like that would be the most needed.

(We live on the line between Moore and Norman. But our property/neighborhood doesn't belong to a city at all. Our address is Norman, but our school district is Moore.)

It's sorta funny-- you're out in the wild....but when you go around this one very tall thicket you're surprised by a block of very nice houses. Their backyards. Someone has cleaned maybe 6 feet behind their fences. It's all very out of place. You're just like picking berries in this wild place, turn a corner and are waving to people enjoying their fancy inground pools and all.

So far no chigger bites. But, we'll see what the day brings. I immediately washed my clothes in hot water and took a shower. Maybe that will help. Sometimes they show up a day later. I am torn up from the thorns. Legs and hands. Those berries are so delish, tho. It's worth it.

While I was at Pilates last night, Tom fixed steak for our neighbor, another guy who is living with the neighbor (long story), and another friend. They were still here when I got home, so I quickly changed clothed and was able to spend a glorious half hour in the kitchen garden. All of the basil in one bed got pruned and one of the tomato plants. It was muggy! I was in shade, but wow. That is my favorite thing about gardening. Just looking at the plants and weeding and pruning and caring for them in general. I sure wish I had more time to do that.

Today's chores are making bread and butter pickles, sauerkraut and possibly getting the berries that I do have juiced. So happy I don't have to go anywhere today or tonight.

At some point I'll need to get okra and blushing tomatoes and possibly cucumbers.

Yesterday I didn't get much done other than getting the berries and breading and freezing a couple of bags of okra.

About saving pepper seed. From what I understand, leave the peppers on the plants until they get oldish and wrinkly. Anyone have tips on that? I'll save us all some Craig's Grande seed.

I once saved seed from a store bougt red bell pepper. We ate the pepper, I saved seeds and they grew very well the next season. So if the pepper is ripe, it should be fine.

Larry, they make turkey bacon. Probably better for us anyway.

Larry, I take a lot of tomato pics and they show up in my " On This Day " pics. These are the Beefmaster from 2021. This is what inspired me to plant Beefmaster in 2022.

And I thought of the name of the Kansas grower where Marcum Nursery gets their plants, its Sedan Floral. That's where these Beefmaster plants came from.

Maybe the seed i bought from Totally Tomatoes would've produced these if not for the adverse weather in 2022. But I'll never know, I'm sticking with Big Beef.

Almost all of them had these ridges and some were severly catfaced, but the flavor was still good.

I think I've said before about my problems growing heirlooms. I've tried Cherokee Purple, Mortgage Lifter, Brandywine and maybe another I can't remember. But what I got was low numbers, very few good fruit. And side-by-side tasting with Big Beef, I could not tell much diff.

But last year I bought some Cherokee Purple seed from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange. And even in a really bad weather year, those plants produced well. And this year I used the same seed and I have three CP's and they're producing great. Almost right there with the Big Beef. I'm getting big slicers, good numbers, with great flavor.

I think next year I'm planting 5 or 6 of the Cherokee Purple, if I can get the seed to germinate. I think if I order more from Southern Exposure, I'll get the same strain of seed ??? IDK.

All I'm eating now is the Cherokee Purple. I'm using the Big Beef for salsa and Mrs Dollar is giving the Big Beef to the quilting clatch. Those three plants have produced far more than I anticipated.

Black Krim has been a good one for me , about the same as Cherokee Purple.

Rick

I tried Cherokee Purple, Black Krim, Black Cherry, and another 1 or 2 blacks one year, and did not like any of them. I found it hard to believe that I did not like any of them. I bought a pack of Black Krim today, and told Madge that I just had to try them again, because too many people like the CP and BK, my taster must have been broken that year.

I am having a better tomato year this year than I have had in a few years. Two things I have done different is to feed my plants a little more and watch the water more closely, plus Mother Nature has been a little more tomato friendly.

I convinced a friend years ago to try Cherokee purple. He said Porter was the best ever tomato. His seed was well acclimated to the area. Well he loved it so much it became his new favorite. I never tasted it myself. I just took other peoples word for it : / this is the second year I do not grow out the Porter seed. There’s always next year.

I've seen Porter around in my feed store. I need to get out of my box and try it.

It's a pink tomato as I recall.

Rick

Confetti cilantro ?

Anyone ever heard of that ? I've got oodles of cilantro seed falling off dead plants now, I should have another good crop up soon. Chef's can get awfully picky and I doubt its worth trying, but hey .

Y'all know Rick Bayless grew up in OKC. He's a graduate of Northwest Classen HS, along with his famous sports writer older brother Skip, who is my age. Their parents ran a barbecue joint on S Western, near 25th street, called the Hickory House.

Rick splits his time between Mexico City and Chicago, where he has a Mexican restaurant and huge herb and vegetable garden.

https://youtube.com/shorts/MMntv_ocFUA?feature=share

Lynn, that is a nice link, I like cilantro, but know nothing about it. My grand daughter ask me to grow some a couple of years ago, so I have been growing it for her.

Jennifer, Madge is happy with her new cucumber, " Party Time Hybrid". I have ask Madge to go ahead and order more seeds if she can get them. The cucumbers are small and smooth. I will post a picture of the cucumbers, and the plants. I started to build a trellis for them, but they started producing when the plant were small, and still are going strong.

This rain is making my plants grow like crazy, I have not been able to keep the tomatoes tied up. I am getting a lot of blight on many of my tomato plants, and I have already lost one plant, an Old German, this is the 3rd year I have tried this plant, and the same thing has happened each year.

This picture shows where the blight is the worst. You can see the void about half way down the right side row where the Old German has cashed out. We are still getting more tomatoes than we know what to do with. I have never been able to keep my tomatoes tied up properly.

There's a huge difference between grocery store cilantro and home grown. The home grown has a huge flavor pop. Its worth growing.

I think I've heard of Confetti cilantro, Lynn. I like how he mentioned how cilantro is used in a lot of places other than Mexico. For instance, the Whole 30 Thai recipe I made last night called for it. But, I don't have any currently so didn't add it.

Larry, those cukes look great! What are y'all going to do with them? Do you eat them fresh or make refrigerator pickles?

I have one Old German in the kitchen garden. The plant looks fairly healthy but it has not made a single fruit. So odd. The tomato plants in my garden look mostly awful, but at some point there's just not time to care for them properly.

Kim, I still haven't tried Porter. Maybe you brought me a plant last year? Or someone did. It was one that snapped from that insane spring wind.

Winter is starting to sound nice. I'm so tired. lol

There's lots getting done even though it doesn't sound like it when I list it out.

I was able to get 11 pints of bread and butter pickles canned yesterday. I realized that I possibly didn't have enough vinegar or sugar, so had to run into the store--holey shorts and stained shirt and all. I didn't want to take the time to look presentable. I did the soak in ice water/refrigerator for 24 hours at harvest time. Mine were in longer than that. And I added pickle crisp, so hopefully I'll get a less soggy pickle. It's been a long while since making bread and butter ones.

I did get the kraut made too. Only ended up with 3 quarts of it. My cabbages didn't do very well this spring. We have used some of it for asian style foods, but I planted a lot of cabbage. It's possible I crammed too many into a bed. It's all good tho. I still have a jar in the refrigerator from fall. That stuff seems to last a long time in the refrigerator.

So last week when I canned 24 pts of tomatoes, I had a quart or so left and stuck them in the refrigerator. I had also dumped some tomato sauce from 2021 (because I needed jars). BUT didn't want to waste it, so also stuck it into the refrigerator. I had this thought of putting them both in the crock pot, cutting up onions, garlic, basil and oregano and just letting it simmer all day. Oh wow. It's good. Ended up with 7 jars of it. I just put it in the freezer because I'm sure it's not safe to can it. I made up the recipe.

Got that done yesterday too.

And 3 bags of okra breaded and put in the freezer

And, our meals are a bit time consuming because (part of) the point of Whole 30 is to eat mostly whole foods. Lots of chopping and dicing. Honestly, tho, that is my normal. Except in the summer where I don't cook as much because I'm gardening, processing food and whatnot.

The berries didn't get done, but I'll do it tomorrow after we pick again. Hopefully we'll go super early. No chiggers from Tuesday. Thank goodness.

There's always extra animal care when it gets so hot. I feel bad for them. Just miserable.

Even though it was so awfully muggy, I went outside around 7 and enjoyed weeding the strawberry beds and one of the herb beds. Those strawberries are making babies. So happy to see it. They've loved this rain. Last year the strawberries were a disaster. New plants that couldn't seem to live no matter how much I watered. The new plants this year are do so well.

Some of our tomatoes taste a little watery this week. Maybe from all the rain.

I was excited to see my Doe Hill peppers last night. It seemed like they turned yellow in a day. They are pretty. I had purchased the seed for 2022, but my peppers were also a disaster last year. They had a shade cloth. They were watered. I got a couple of tiny Doe Hill last year and was disappointed by their size. BUT, I'm so glad I tried them again. These are about the size of my Ashe County pimentos.

Tonight, I'll fix dinner and maybe work outside for a short while--grab things that need harvested. (I unloaded a full walmart sack of okra at work today). And maybe rest a little. I feel like I could sleep for 24 hours. And I'm hungry all the time. I need my carbs! lol

But, I feel like doing this "diet" along with Tom is helping him to stay focused on it. We're eating the same things. He likes that. I still prefer the vegetarian way, but I'll do what I can to help his health.

Y'all be careful out there in the humidity. I'm in my air conditioned office right now....and just hoping all the outside animals at home are doing okay.

Well houzz ate my post.

Confetti cilantro, sold by Johnny's and Burpees, among others. My cilantro reseeds itself, although mostly in the lawn, but it is reliable and kind of a landrace by now. I like to grow papalo for summer cilantro needs.

Larry I grew Old German once, it didn't impress me enough to grow again. Maybe you are one of those people who don't like the flavor of purple tomatoes. My dad refused to even taste anything but a red tomato. A lot of people think purples are rotten because of the color.

Lynn I'm glad Cherokee Purple is working for you. There is a Hybrid of CP and Carbon that I love, only slightly smaller fruit,but more of it.

I can't fight with houzz anymore.

Amy, I do think that I may be a little like your dad, I don't care much for ugly tomatoes. Madge would love one as large as a watermelon, even an ugly one, she will take a slice that may even be larger than the bread she is using, coat the bread with mayo, and just have a tomato sandwich. I love the little roma tomatoes picked very green, sliced, coated with jiffy corn bread mix and dropped into a very hot skillet to brown the corn bread mix and still leave the tomato green, sour, and crunchy. A few nights ago we had sandwiches, I coated my bread with the small fried romas, topped with a slice of ripe tomato, it was a great sandwich.

I think that I will give up on the Old German. I have gotten a few good fruit from the ones I have tried, but I can put less work into another tomato that will be more productive. I tend to like a firmer, greener, more acid taste, Madge like a tomato that is almost over ripe, for my liking.

I dont know if I am fighting with houzz, or my computer, but it seems that everything I do takes at least 2 or 3 times to complete.

Old German is a weird one. It's the healthiest tomato plant in the garden, but it hasn't produced one fruit.

Things I'm thinking about....

Onions. They've been curing on the shop porch but got a little wet from a couple of the storms. The rain came in sideways. Now, with the humidity, I'm wondering if they'll store well at all. I have kept a fan on them some.

Will I regret planting chamomile in every garden bed? I think it's already reseeding. It is lovely, tho.

Well, I used all of the Cherokee Purple seed I'd gotten from Southern Exposure. And I'm inclined to believe that there's a difference in seed of the same variety. I'm really happy with these plants.

I could try to save seed but I did that 10+ years ago and it was quite a bit of trouble, IIRC. I had to ferment the seed and then dry them out on a screen. And me being a newby at that, I was saving seeds from a hybrid, Big Bush was the name of the variety. I did not know that hybrid seeds would not reproduce and found out the hard way.

Or I could buy CP seed from Southern Exposure again and hope I get the same strain of seed. SESE operates a big differently and I like my chances of getting the same seed. Here's what they say on their site

Cherokee Purple Tomato

85 days. (Indeterminate) [Pre-1890 TN heirloom, reportedly of Cherokee Indian origin. Introduced 1993 by SESE. Seed courtesy Craig LeHoullier.] Large, smooth fruits (10-12 oz) with slightly ridged shoulders. Ripens to a unique dark, dusky pink/purple. Sometimes called a black tomato, the color carries through to the flesh, especially at the stem end. Good resistance to Septoria leaf spot. A shorter indeterminate, plants average 5 ft. tall. ‘Cherokee Purple’ has spread widely since its introduction, with variations developing over time, but our strain is still the original, shorter shape.

Seed grown and stewarded by Twin Oaks Seed Farm in Louisa, VA.

I buy seeds at the farmers co-op when I can find them, but the price of seeds as the co-op have been going up in price, and the selection seems to be dropping, and I am thinking that I may get "purer" seeds online. I have saved seeds from tomatoes, but now I wonder if I an getting pure seeds because I grow several kinds of plants in the same row. Any way I have suggested to Madge that we order more seeds on line. The plants from the seeds that Madge ordered did very well this year, but so did my bulk seeds.

We had more wind and rain last night, and I have more tomatoes and tomato plants on the ground. I have been out picking tomatoes and cucumbers, and need to start tying plants up, but this old man heats up fast.

I had ask Madge if she has seen any Golden Jubilee tomatoes yet, that is a new one for me this year, she goes into the kitchen and brings back 2 very nice tomatoes, but I am like Amy's dad, those tomatoes are the wrong color, they look like they will taste like mustard. I have not eaten any of her "Orange Hybrid" either, but she and my daughter almost fight over them.

I will bore y'all again. I enjoy my gardening. The 2 house gardens are doing well so far, they don't look as good as town gardens, but with the 2 house gardens and my wildlife garden there are a lot of plants to care for.

This is one of the plants that blew down in the storm. The ground was soft so it did not break so I straightened it up and tied it to the rebar.

This is a row of jalapeno, next is a row of bell, egg plant, and what ever, we use the wildlife garden for overflow plants. You can see that they don't get a lot of care, but the rows are far enough apart to drive a tractor between to disc the weeds in.

There was a young gray squirrel watching me while I was over at the wildlife garden, he was sitting on a pine tree that blew down last night in the storm, we also expect another storm tonight. The part of the wildlife garden that has the peppers, also has over 100 tomato plants, that the squirrel has staked claim on. The tomato plants are almost all cherry and roma, just the right size for stealing. The squirrels love to steal the sunflower seeds also.

This is two rows of roselle, and a mix of roselle, zinnia, and sunflower. I had some sunflower broken or blown down, but I was expecting that.

I called my aunt today and had her to come over and get all the vegetables she wanted, which she did, but I still have them sitting on the cabinet and in a 5 gal bucket on the floor. This has been a better than normal year so far.

Glad you got real " jalapeno " and not hot banana like some of us cursed with "jalapeno gate".

Rick

Lynn, maybe VA's climate is similar to ours.

Larry I've never tried a Golden Jubilee. I do like Dr. Wyche which is a yellow/gold tomato. (One of my top 2 favorites in taste.) I need to get one ripe fruit. I've had two destroyed by some critter. Possibly a wayward chicken.

Speaking of tomatoes. I saved seed from TBB, Abe Lincoln, German Johnson and Arkansas Traveler...and started some. They're all sprouting! I'm hoping to get some fruit from them before the first frost and then I'll save more seed...and keep it going. Let me know if anyone wants any.

I tore up my hands and legs again today picking blackberries but have 9 jars of jelly.

Larry, two years ago I had great success with roselle. Last year, they struggled (but so did everything). This year only one plant survived. I really want to dry it and make tea with it. There's still a few jars of jelly in the pantry.

Kim, did you get your blackberries?

Jennifer, I have heard that roselle tea is wonderful. I only have 6 plants here at the house, but I think we have a total of 200+ scattered around in all the gardens we have planted, I dont know how to properly dry the roselle, but this would be a good year to learn. They are already making the red pods. Neighbor was telling me how much a gal. of roselle juice cost, I don't remember what the cost was, but I think it was more than good whiskey ( if there is such a thing as good whiskey).

Several of my tomatoes I was able to buy an ounce of seed from the Farmers Co-op, an ounce of seed will last me a long time. My goal this year is to get a good supply of Mrs. Maxwell tomato seeds. Madge has some tomatoes that she really likes, but they are all hybrid, so we are going to order those and be tight with them.

I have raised Golden Jubilee for over 15 years i prefer it over a red tomato. i also like Lemon Boy but the Golden Jubilee is my favorite. Larry, take a blindfold tsste test and you may find GJ is a delicious tomato Also, the yellow tomatoes have less acid and don’t bother my stomach. The SunGold and Sun Sugar are yelloe cherry tomatoes thst are delicious and heavy producers but both get virus and have to be pulled early. For sweet bell peppers, i always leave them until red, yellow, or orange. i cant eat the green bells.

Larry, i was born in Mena Arkansas, and lived in Leflore county with my grandparents and uncle until I was five years old. i still have family in that area.

Farmgardener, Madge was born in Mena, she was born in a log cabin out near the Ouachita river. A couple has bought the land and cabin Madge was born in, torn the cabin down and rebuilt it like it was before. The couple moved the cabin over far enough to build a new house next to it. The cabin was used for the daughter and her child to live. I think the couple wanted a better view of the river from their house, and to have their grandchild close. Madge said that her mother went down to the river to wash the clothes when Madge was a child.

We have a painting hanging in our bed room of that old cabin that Madge's daughter painted from an old photo from Madge's childhood. Madge has gone down and visited with the family that rebuilt the cabin, but Madge says that the cabin looks much nicer now than it did when they lived in it. Madge was born in 1939, and was the third of seven children, so there had to be at least 5 living in that small cabin. I don't remember how long they lived in the log cabin.

The best Cherokee Purple I grew was a massive plant, easily 8 feet tall and 3 feet wide. I was shocked by the 5' description. It has been grown a lot and probably does have different "strains", much like Porter.

I've grown Sungold, and some odd colored tomatoes including green when ripe. Sungold always split, and it was too hard to tell when to pick with the others. I bought a pineapple something tomato at the farmers market and decided it didn't impress me enough to grow. I DO like the flavor of the purple tomatoes and pinks. My favorite, Grandma Suzy's Beefsteak, is a pink.

Larry that jalapeño is impressive!

Have a good weekend.

Larry, thank you for sharing that story about Madge. So interesting. I love stories like that and I also like that there is a family living on her old home property. Very cool.

And, I too need to figure out the roselle tea thing. I've only made jelly/jam with it.

farmgardenerok, Sungold is such a delicious cherry tomato. My favorite. It has its issues for sure....like the disease that you mentioned. Also, they split easily after a good rain. Mine are not doing wonderful this year probably because it's been so wet. (once again, NOT complaining.) But, you mentioning that they have to be pulled early made me think that I should start seed for fall Sungold in the future.

Wow. I just had the bottom blow off a jar while in the canner. What a pain. For one having to dump the water out of the canner and start with fresh water. It takes forever (it seems) to get the water to boiling when starting from fresh. I have another batch of pickles to do.

One of the other jars fell over, but looks fine. Is it okay to store in the pantry? I need to look that up. This is a first for me.

I think it's about up to 190 now. Back to the kitchen.

Amy, thanks for the positive remark about the jalapeno plants. I think that I planted Jalapeno -M, but I have more than one type of jalapeno seed. The other jalapeno seed I have produces a smaller, and hotter fruit, the plants seem to be smaller, but are very productive, the peppers will hang on the smaller plants almost like berries, you just pick yourself to death trying to harvest them.

Jennifer, I have at least 2 Sungold plants here at the house, and they are very productive this year, matter of fact, I don't remember having a sungold that was not productive, and so far this year I have had very few split, but when its hot and dry I have a lot of sungold split.

When I grew Sungold for Market they were the best producers and I never had any trouble with them splitting. I also grew a tomato called a large red cherry I got from the dollar store and it was such a phenomenal producer I could never pick them all. The snow white and black cherry both did OK. But the pear tomatoes yellow and red cherry pear I will never grow those again I maybe harvested 10 good ones out of 100. I also grew the golden jubilee that year and although I didn’t get that many I don’t think it was the plants fault I think it was the fact that the cherries over took them. I sure miss those Fridays harvesting pints full of cherry tomatoes. Such a peaceful time. Larry love your Madge stories too. Makes me wish I could come spend a week listening to y’all.

Kim, I grow a large cherry tomato also, I don't have any in the house gardens, but there are some in the wildlife garden and a lot over on my neighbors land. The large cherry tomato is one of the seeds that I could get at the Co-op by the once. Neighbor sells the cherry tomato by the qt. as a salad tomato, they seem to be a pretty hot item. I buy the Golden Jubilee, and most of my pepper seed by the once also. I think the price of seeds have doubled what I was paying last year.

Kim, Madge and would drive you nuts in less than a week. My stories are not as sweet as Madge's stories, but I am proud of what I have been through. I was born in a small 2 room house just south of hwy 10 between Greenwood and Hackett. The doctor told dad and my grandmother to give me enough paregoric to keep quite till I died, and I would be dead before morning. My grandmother, being an ole Chickasaw Squaw was not going to take the news that her first grand child was going to die, lying down. Most people living out in the country tried to have a milk cow, well granny's cow just had a calf, or was ready to have a calf, so granny goes out and milks some colostrum from her cow and fed me with an eye dropper, and 3 days later I was still alive, so dad and mom drive to Greenwood to see the doctor. Some time in mom's pregnancy she had suffered a bad fall that must have damaged my nose. At that time nobody had the money to go to the doctor, and just tried to rest as much as possible, or till they got to feeling better.

When the doctor delivered me he tried to fix my nose by molding it with tape, and pulled it to the left side and taping it to my cheek to try to hold it open. Mom told me that she thought that the doctor would be proud that I was still alive, but instead, he scolded her for not taking the tape off.

Any way 80 years later, I am still alive, with a nice, big, crooked nose, and the doctor is dead.

Anyway, Kim, if you came we could bore you with a lot of stories, its to bad that my younger brother is no longer here, he had a tone of stories.

Farmgardener, my first two Golden Jubilee tomatoes, unless Madge has pick some I don"t know about.

Amy, I did try one of Madge's Orange Hybrid tomatoes yesterday, and it did not taste like an orange, but I wish it had.

The Golden Jubilee seem a little slow.

I am having a lot of insect problems.

Amy, I have three Cherokee Purple from the SESE seed, and one is 5 foot tall, but the other two at least 6 foot. They also seem to be handling the blight very well. They've produced as many tomatoes as most of my Big Beef.

We found one of Madge's "NEW" tomatoes in the wildlife garden, she is not too happy with this one, she was expecting something larger, this is the "Orange and Purple Hybrid"