my promised rosemary | Page 4 | Food Production and Preservation | Forums

Thanx Duke I am having so much fun with this garden! And now...sooooo many tomatoes! I already dried a bunch and munch on them occasionally like chips. There are a ton more still green and growing, I am going to pickle those with basil. I made 6 pints of dill pickle slices the other day (I choose small jars for slices because we don't eat them very fast and no point in having a quart jar open in the fridge for weeks.) I got the cabbage worms under control, I put my peppermint plant smack in the middle of the cabbage patch, those dang butterflies don't like the peppermint so they won't come around and lay eggs hehe! my spanish onions are causing me a little grief, they are growing well but are sticking up out of the dirt now, tomorrow I will hill them and hope for the best, if that doesn't work, the worst case scenario is that I have a bunch of pearl onions which is fine too, I can pickle those in with the tomatoes and basil. What a yummy veggie side dish for a labor day picnic! or even for Thanksgiving! how pretty would that be on a plate full of turkey and dressing?? have a wonderful day everyone!

Weekly check in! I made bread and butter pickles this week and they turned out amazing, I did a whole quart and sliced them paper thin so that I would not have to wait weeks for them to be done, I'm not a patient person lol! The tomatoes are ripening at different rates so I have just been picking them while a little under ripe and storing them in the fridge, they last a couple of weeks that way and I am hoping to have enough to pickle before the first few get icky. There are only 3 cucumbers left on the vines and the vines are dying from the base of the plant, odd thing is, the vines are still growing longer and it is still making a couple of cukes but all of them are at the "good" end. The leaves turn dusty, then yellow, then crispy and dried out and it started at where the plant is in the ground and continues to creep it's way to up the vines. It's so odd. Oh well, they're going to do what they are going to do and I'll just keep making pickles until they stop. Everything else is status quo, the rosemary still hasn't grown anymore and kind of looks like it is trying to turn yellow, I think I need to put it in the ground if I am going to get any harvest off of it at all. It is very possibly root bound. I have harvested 4 rhubarb stalks so far, one stalk died on the plant and one more is dying, it's very small and the leaf to that stalk is yellow and the edges are crispy, I think I should pick it even though it is small or I may lose the entire stalk. There are 2 more stalks that could be harvested but I am trying not to because the sun on that side of the house is very strong in the afternoon and the new stalk that is growing is so tender, the leaves provide protection. Anyway, I've babbled long enough. If anyone has any idea about what is wrong with my cucumber vines, I would like to know your thoughts. Thanx!! Blessings, Sylie