Harvested tomatoes tonight, pics soon.

I am new to the board, but i also garden. It was a good year for tomatoes, we were giving away peck baskets until most were sick of them. Our cucumbers did very poorly, producing only a hand-full that were short, stunted, and sickly. The strawberries exploded! We were not even supposed to get a harvest this year, but they are still bearing and setting on runners! The peppers were decent, as well as the radishes. The green beans (the half that came up) was pretty sad. The sweet corn was saved from raccoons by your truly (and my electric fence) The ornamental corn did well (what the deer left) I just got the last of the potatoes out of the ground, the last hundred pounds. The previous harvests yielded around about fifty pounds or so. Potatoes did very very well. I say that it was a success.

I have two 100' x 50 beds, four raised 5 x 8 beds, one 20x50 strawberry patch, three 10x4 berry patches, about 30 1-5 year old apples, peaches, and cherry trees.

Well done. We're harvesting now and planning for next year...

You might want to get your garden beds ready to start immediately in spring by making some preparations now. You can weed them, level them, and cover with a thick mulch of straw or leaves, etc, or plant a winter-hardy cover crop suitable to your area.

In the spring, a mulched area will just have to have the leftover mulch raked aside, and you can add some fertilizer and get right to planting.

Sue

Did you can, dry or freeze any of your surplus bounty? If so what and why?

We freezed a lot of tomatoes juice. (Stewed, paste, sauce) We had an overabundance this year, rather than see them go to waste we now can use them through most of the winter. These things go quickly in my home and do not warrant canning. We could not get enough quanity of berries at one time to really put up. (they came a little at a time for a long time) The potatoes are in the basement, or long storage, for the winter. we will eat them until next spring and still have seed potatoes left. Most of our bounty here was pretty much spread amongst us and our family/friends as most of them are old or unable to garden themselves.

thanks for the info Jim, I had wondered if you had dried any or were preparing any for long term use.

Other than the peppers that we dried, not really. Little red peppers, held together on a piece of fishing line, are decorative and are great for chili, salsa, and other spicy stuff. as long as they stay dry they will be ok, even if they turn white from the sun. Most of what we grew is not really good for long term use but if we have a good harvest next year we will can again.

turned over about a 1/4 of the garden today, got the onions, radishes, peas, potatoes in. burned off the whole garden yesterday. figure we should leave the crust intact until ready to plant the rest. btw, spring is finally here!

Spring may be THERE, but it's sure dragging it's feet HERE!

My pre-sprouted peas (they were a few years old -- no point in wasting space on duds) are sitting in a bowl covered with a damp paper towel, waiting for the rain and wind to go away for a while.

I've already got some bush sugar snap peas, lettuce and bunching onions planted. On nice days, I'm working all day; on wild wet days, I get part of those off.

Sue