Hello everyone! Back again so soon. 🙂 I hope this post finds you doing well. I thought it was time I made a post about the garden. It has been a weird summer because it wouldn’t stop raining. I’m certainly not going to complain about the rain compared to the heat and drought last summer. It just takes longer to keep the grass and weeds out of the rows, but it eventually gets done. We haven’t had any rain for a few days and the soil is crusty on top now.

Where should I begin? Well, just as well start with the rhubarb… I think it was back in 2o13 (the year I came back home) when dad went to an old friend’s home and brought back some rhubarb plants. He wanted me to plant it in the old flower bed by the northeast corner of the old foundation with the horseradish. I did but it has been iffy for the past several years and I wanted to move it to the garden. On May 28 when my sister and her husband were here plant shopping, I brought home 6 Rhubarb ‘Victoria’.

I put them in a row next to the tomatoes. I dug their holes and dumped in compost and cow manure and planted the rhubarb… All the plants did very well except for one. It up and died… Rhubarb are clumping plants, so I can fill in the spot.

Rhubarb ‘Victoria’ is a popular red variety that has been around for many years. I thought I would give it a shot.

I dug up most of the green rhubarb from the flower bed, divided it, and then filled in the rest of the row. I grew up on green rhubarb so I was very glad when dad brought it home. He had a HUGE patch of it in the garden where I grew up but for some reason, he didn’t bring any here when they moved.

NICE! There are still a few plants in the flower bed for back-up…

I have grown ‘Celebrity’ for several years since Jim Ruebush of “How I See It” said he planted this variety and recommended it. Most tomato varieties do OK, but this one has done somewhat better than some of the others, so I keep planting it. I really like homegrown tomatoes but it seems like I really haven’t mastered growing them. I think I expect fruit that looks like the ones from the grocery store with the homegrown flavor and juiciness… I have seen other people’s tomatoes and wondered how they look like that? Notice I am not showing you the stem where the fruit is attached… There is a black ring. Perhaps it is from so much rain…

While I was a Mast’s Greenhouse, I ran across a variety I hadn’t seen before called ‘Red Duce’. I decided to give them a shot, and so far they have done very well. I’m not going to say it out loud in the garden, but to be honest with you, ‘Red Duce’ is… UMMM… Outperforming ‘Celebrity’. Now, to be honest with you again, I brought home four of each and two plants of each are doing better than the others. Well, a cutworm destroyed one of the ‘Celebrity’ so there are only three left.

You may have noticed the excessive use of jute twine in the above photos. Well, last summer I watched a video on YouTube from Hoss… He was trellising determinate tomatoes using what he called the “Florida Weave’ so I thought I would give it a shot. The only difference is that he plants two tomato plants between the stakes and I only have one… That’s because I’ve been leaving the stakes in the garden from one year to the next… What is funny is that I thought ‘Celebrity’ was an indeterminate but the tag, which I didn’t pay any attention to until this year, says they are determinate… Hmmm… ‘Red Duce’s is also determinate so I am trying a variation of the Florida weave.

Normally, I plant ‘Goliath’ and an heirloom variety (like ‘German Johnson’), but this year I couldn’t find either one. So, I brought home four ‘Pineapple’ which I had grown before. The plants are going insane…

When we had our family reunion, my niece brought a container of cherry tomatoes ith her. They were very good, so I went to Wagler’s Greenhouse to see if they had any ‘Sweet 100’ because I thought I had seen them earlier. Mrs. Wagler said they didn’t have any, but there were a few yellow cherry tomato plants left. She said they were very good so I brought one home to try out.

I grew red cherry tomatoes in Mississippi and several plants would come up every year in the garden where they hadn’t been before. Grandpa always grew red and yellow pear tomatoes in their garden and they would always come up volunteer. I guess perhaps birds eat them which is how the seeds spread…

Hmmm… I learned my lesson with planting zucchini so I only planted one. Next thing I knew two plants were coming up. I must have dropped a seed…

Yep! Already underway…

I couldn’t find enough cantaloupe last year so I planted my own. I have had less than desirable results with watermelon and I haven’t grown cantaloupe since the 1980’s.

The worst thing about growing melons is tilling around the vines. GEEZ! All those little weeds and the Foxtail popping up here and there…

When I moved back here in 2013 and it was time to plant the garden, we went to my cousin’s seed company in Clinton (Miller Seed Company). Several years prior my cousin had recommended the sweet corn ‘Incredible’ when it came out. The local farmer’s co-op had it at $14.00 per pound which was more expensive than any other variety! Mike always gave Dad his seed which was a much better option. Now, I buy it from the co-op for $7.95 per pound… It is one of the best varieties I have grown, so I will keep growing it. I was late getting it planted, June 7, because of the rain. Umm… I could have planted it sooner, but I could hear  dad in my head saying, “It isn’t the right sign yet.” So, I waited until the moon sign said it was time.

A couple of weeks ago, I started having a slight issue with corn borers. The moths lay eggs on the leaves and when they hatch the caterpillars start chewing on the leaves, As they get bigger, they make their way to the rosette of leaves on top and then bore down into the stalk. Well, I couldn’t have that so I bought a Sevin and sprinkled it on the affected corn… The next day I found a couple of dead caterpillars. Then I got to thinking it wouldn’t do much good to use it on the plants that were already damaged, so I bought Sevin as a hose-end sprayer and sprayed the entire garden. Since then, I have hardly seen a bug of any kind… I’m not one to use chemicals in the garden, but I thought it was necessary… The sweet corn is looking great and it looks like there will be a bumper crop…

As always, I went to Green Street Market in Clinton to buy green bean seeds. It was no surprise when they were out of ‘Top Crop’, so I bought ‘Provider’ again. Last year I tried three varieties because there was no ‘Top Crop’ and ‘Provider’ came to the rescue because the other two fizzled out from the heat (even though I watered it). As you can tell, the ‘Provider’ is looking great… I still have green beans from last year in the freezer, but I planted more.

There are A LOT of flowers and even a few tiny beans here and there. Looks like someone had been nibbling on the leaves…

I also planted four double rows of ‘Peaches and Cream’ sweet corn… I haven’t been able to find ‘Peaches and Cream’ for several years because it was always sold out. I tried ‘Ambrosia’ in its place for a couple of years, but it didn’t do very well. Luckily, I found ‘Peaches and Cream’ this time around and so far it has done well. I finally finished weeding and hilling these four rows after a couple of weeks of rain every few days. Normally, I pile up dirt around the sweet corn several times, but this year only once… I am sure at some point the wind will come and I will have to stand it back up…

Now, there are aphids to deal with… In the past, there have always been beneficial insects to help with the aphids. This year, I have seen very few anywhere. It’s not because I sprayed with Sevin a few weeks ago, either. Well, perhaps that didn’t help, but even where I haven’t sprayed there have been very few.

I’m not sure what I was thinking, but I planted a second double row of ‘Provider’… I fertilized the sweet corn but definitely not the green beans.

That’s it for the 2024 garden…

Until next time, be safe, stay positive, always be thankful, and of course, GET DIRTY!