Last garden update of the Summer

If you’re curious, THIS is the link to look back at my garden costs tracking for the summer.

Based on my lackadaisical method of record keeping I spent $90.15 on the garden.  Round it up to $100 since I’m sure I forgot to record SOMETHING.

And “made” $184 (plus whatever all the melons, carrots, radishes, lettuce, pumpkins, etc would have been which I never did manage to check prices on)

So, definitely a profit, especially since I’d have likely never bought half as much if I’d had to actually buy it all.  But not really thousands and thousands either.  Course, I’m not being massively OCD about keeping up with the garden, nor do I have a full 1/4-1/2 acre in garden, but it’s still a good sized garden for a home garden.  I’ll take it.

The compost tomato plant succumbed to Late Blight, but I managed to salvage a few ripe tomatoes off of it that didn’t appear to get touched by the blight, so I’ll be planting those seeds again next year.

Here’s what mature Long Pie Pumpkins look like:

KIMG0339

The biggest is 13.5″ long, and weighs 5.5 pounds.  The other two are closer to the 12″ mark, and weigh about a pound less.

Anyone want Rattail Radish seeds?  I massively over planted, and since you eat the seed pod on these, instead of the bulb like normal radishes, I have a million seed pods drying now too.  Ok, not literally a million, but since I packed a gallon ziplock (and I do mean packed, I smushed them in) of the largest seed pods that were dry enough to empty out as I get time, and still barely made a dent in the seed pods, I have plenty of seeds for the next few years!  Seriously, if someone wants some email me at ruthcatrin (at) scaryyankeechick (dot) com with “rattail radish” in the subject line (otherwise your email might get filtered as junk).  But unless you have a HUGE radish loving family 4 or 5 plants is plenty!

I planted three tires with Purple Early Sprouting Broccoli and some more normal radishes for fall/winter gardening.  The Early Sprouting Broccoli is designed for the winter garden, and infact HAS TO experience a winter in order to produce heads.  Its supposed to be hardy down to 10 degrees (F).  I’m making plans on how I want to cover it for the winter since our chances of dipping below 10 are pretty good.  I’ll try to remember to keep updating on that.

On the deck side of things, the worst of the bad electrical is fixed, but we’re going to have to have an electrician out at some point to basically re-wire the garage and carport.  Now that we now to look for it, there doesn’t appear to be a single junction box in the entire garage, and in several places they wired in “additional” stuff using lamp cord wire instead of proper electrical wire.  And since the carport was added after the garage its safe to assume that its the same way.  The paperwork for the permit for the new front steps and landing is into the town, they agreed to waive the requirement for footers since this is a “temporary” set of stairs.

2 thoughts on “Last garden update of the Summer”

  1. Those are some nice looking pumpkins – you’ll have to let me know how they taste. Just the name makes me think they are better for baking than most.

    Glad the town is working with you on the stairs. Sometimes common sense actually can prevail 🙂

    I remember when we were building my previous house – the inspector came in regaling us with tales of people wiring entire houses with lamp cord and extension cords! That is really the only thing he looked at, the wire, didn’t look at junction boxes or the hook up to the panel.

    Good luck with figuring it all out!

    • I will try to remember to update on the pumpkins! But the little ones that we pulled when the vines died were quite tasty (though not necessarily distinguishable from other pie pumpkins).

      My biggest reason for picking this variety is that they’re a comparatively short season pumpkin (95-105 days depending on who you talk to), as well as being “stringless” inside. On top of being good for storing.

      And I will say they’re a short season! We had an abnormally long and warm summer this year (our last frost was almost a month early, and we’ve STILL not had our first frost for the fall!), BUT, I planted out the seedlings in mid-May (right when we SHOULD have gotten our last frost) as the black tires had warmed up the dirt in them enough to make it safe to transplant. By the end of July every single pumpkin was “ripe enough” to pick, and store to continue ripening in storage, had I been so inclined. I left them on the vine, and I’d swear they continued to grow even after starting to turn orange. But the above picture was taken on August 30th and I kept forgetting to post it!

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