July Garden & Harvest Tour | Zone 7, KY USA

[00:00:00]Get out in here. [music] M kind of starting to turn color. Really the favorite. Going to turn brown. Really loaded [music] down. Zucchini breads and things. It's a big one.

[00:00:10]Good morning. Welcome back to Sage and Stone Homestead. My name is Heather.

[00:00:15]It's been a few weeks again since we've looked in the garden. And there's a lot that's in transition. There's a lot that is really growing well. Like right here in this bed, you can see behind me, these melons are doing awesome, which I'm happy about. In the beginning of the season, this particular bed was pretty weedy, and because of that, these melons were struggling, but they've caught up.

[00:00:38]And actually, I don't think it'll be too long before we can harvest. Now, what I had planted in here was seed that I had saved from a plant from 2020 that was a cross. It's my armpit melon. This doesn't look like an armpit melon. This looks like a kajjari melon. The armpit melon is a cross between a kajjari and a charente melon. I saved all of the seed out of one melon. And very consistently for about 2 years, I got this cross. It was an accident. This was not something I did intentionally. I was trying to save Kajjari melon seed. But anyway, I loved the fruit that came out of that crosspollination. Problem is, not every single seed inside that one melon has the same genetics. And so that's what we're seeing here. I don't think we have armpits in this bed at all out of the three plants. An armpit melon is looks like this, but it's actually a lot more muted and it's a little bit more fuzzy.

[00:01:31]This looks very Kajjari like to me. This melon over here, I think all of its melons are really tiny right now. Oh no.

[00:01:39]Unless this is from the melon next door that looks very Kajjari like as well.

[00:01:44]Look at all of them under there. And then there's another one over here that also looks very kajjari like. So we've got lots of kajjari melons which is great. They are a delicious melon. But look at this. [laughter] This is a Dutch pork pie pumpkin that I stuck in the edge of this bed specifically so we can let it ramble. It is incredibly happy.

[00:02:06]We've gotten tons of rain in the last couple of weeks. I haven't had to run the sprinklers in this space for months now. This garden back here stresses some people out. It mildly stresses me out.

[00:02:19]It's messy, but it's also abundant. So, we'll start here and then get to the more organized spaces. I guess if this stresses you out, I'll put a time stamp so that you don't have to be in the middle of the chaos. I like it. So, those of you that like chaos, come on.

[00:02:33]Before we go in there, I'll show you the blackberries that are coming on. We're harvesting. It's about a quart every other day. The blackberries aren't doing as well as they have in past years, but my lack of upkeep is probably part of that. There's a pumpkin that I put at the base of the grapes that is doing the pumpkin thing. And it's come way out here. This is exactly what I wanted. If anyone is wondering, I am wearing my boots. People get worried about the chaos garden and whether or not there's snakes. We've never seen a poisonous snake here. There are poisonous snakes in this part of Kentucky, but we have seen a lot of king snakes and things like possums that do keep the poisonous varieties at bay. That being said, I'm not interested in taking chances, so I do have my boots on. Since that side of the chaos garden is a little bit harder to get into, we'll come through the archway where our volunteer birdhouse gourd is at its peak. Absolutely. It actually started way over in this corner here and came over and went up the trellus. We did encourage it to do so.

[00:03:38]But check it out in here. Oh, it's magical. And these are literally some of the biggest birdhouse cords that I have ever grown. That is absolutely humongous. So heavy. I'm sure there's one here. There's one there. There's quite a few. And the kids are really excited because I harvested a lot of birdhouse gourds a couple years ago. I did some birdhouses with them and gave them away for Christmas and that was nice, but I still had a lot of them laying around and so they asked if they could, you know, play arts and crafts with them and they had a good time for about a week playing with the birdhouse gourds and so they're excited to have some new material. I have seen a couple passion flowers, not too many, but these have started. And the lovely yellow currant tomato that volunteers on our property is absolutely in full production mode. We have these tomatoes literally everywhere. Absolutely everywhere. And it's a blessing because they're delicious. My beautiful sunflowers are past their peak. They are bowing their heads heavy with seed, which is how this patch happened in the first place. You can see if we rub out the center of this flower.

[00:04:54]You can see the seed underneath.

[00:04:57]We've saved a lot of sunflower heads in the past to use in the winter as chicken treats. You just throw the whole head in there and they love it. There is another pumpkin on this side of the musketine grape trellis and it is being allowed to go out this way. Part of the reason Oh, that's a huge mosquito. Part of the reason that this is as chaotic as it is is I had sort of planned for these pumpkins to be the ground cover in here weeks before they actually got going. I had several rounds of failed pumpkins and so they just didn't have the chance to take over before the weeds did and then I started to get some volunteer zenia growing. I didn't have the heart to cut them down.

[00:05:37]I do need to come through here and dead head so that they bloom some more. But this has been a real joy over here.

[00:05:44]Clearly the musketine grapes are loving life. They did put on this second flush of greenery like I talked about, but check them out. They're getting big. The plan with these musketines is to make musketine wine. I just started experimenting with elderberry wine. So far so good. I haven't gotten to the point of tasting it yet, but that is the plan for these musketines. These grapes are our jelly grapes. These are Concord variety. You can't really see them at this point, but you come a little bit closer and we can see that they are kind of starting to turn color. These guys come to maturity before the musketines over there. We really want them to be super super dark purple before they're ready. That one might be.

[00:06:33]These are literally the best tasting grapes I have ever had in my life.

[00:06:39]Mm- close but not quite. Still a little bit sour, but delicious. These grapes are going to be juiced for grape jelly. Or we could make a wine out of these, too, if we wanted. This is not my first time trying to establish raspberries. Uh there were three raspberry plants here.

[00:06:57]Now there's one, it seems. It looks like actually it has put on a little bit of fruit. I didn't even notice that. So it's good. I mean that's delicious.

[00:07:09]There were two red raspberries and then the middle was golden raspberry.

[00:07:15]Yeah, I think we can start talking about it in past tense.

[00:07:18]Raspberries have been a lot harder to establish than blackberries for me, but I don't really understand it. We've gotten a lot of rain. This is one of the lower spots in our property, and so it could be root rot. It's possible that in order to establish a raspberry bed, I need to put a raised bed out here. That seems to be the theme. We can grow pretty decently in ground here, but if it really does dump down and we have a wet year, root rot in this clay soil is very common. Check out the Jerusalem artichokes.

[00:07:52]Man, I'm so hoping we get flowers. I have said that for weeks and weeks and weeks and so far, no signs of them. This cute bed here is in need of a weeding again. This happened really fast.

[00:08:04]Doesn't take very much rain for that grass to really get an upper hand, but I'll get to it probably in the next week or so. We're starting to cool down a little bit and it'll be easier. Problem is, the mosquitoes make it hard, too.

[00:08:15]There's a lot of mosquitoes out this morning. Sometimes I'll come out and garden in like my beekeeping equipment.

[00:08:23]That is how bad the mosquitoes can get cuz they just drive you insane. But the cinnamon basil, I've harvested and harvested and harvested and as a result with that and all the rain, we have gotten very big. So, it is time for another harvest. We do have some flowers, but that's okay. There's actually a lot of flowers over here. It smells incredible over here. This is Peruviana Zenia which volunteered over here this year. And it is also time for another echgonia harvest. These plants have put on the blooms more than I thought they would. This is at least the third really large flush of blooms. What I've been doing is just harvesting them and laying them out to dry. And then I can put the petals in teas. I can put them in tinctures. Teas are really the favorite. I still have my two struggling blueberry plants. They're actually doing better than I thought they would, too.

[00:09:14]And then the giant elderberry plant, which does have some poke growing in it.

[00:09:20]This is pokeed here. And these berries do also ripen to purple. They are toxic, but in my opinion, it's really easy to tell the difference. These here is the pokee. And then this is the elderberry.

[00:09:32]Like super different. The birds have been getting their fill of elderberry, but there have been some that we've been able to harvest. You see, I can come by and harvest this a little bit later. And what I can do since my berries haven't been coming on all at once is I can put the ripe fruit in the freezer and collect enough in order to juice and process into either jelly or wine later on. Now, I have Oh my gosh. See how huge? Oh my goodness.

[00:10:02]The Kentucky mosquitoes are crazy. But I do have a subscriber that told me that they cut their elderberry plants way way down at the end of the season so that they can go into winter basically as little nubs and they put on fresh greenery the next year and all their blooms at the same time and you can harvest at the same time. That's what they said. I have never actually pruned my elderberry plant beyond, you know, just cutting off the umbles and whatever like pruning that that is. So I might try that.

[00:10:34]The kids garden is in transition. This is actually funny. Y'all know what this is? This is birdhouse gourd. I told you that they had a lot of birdhouse gourd that they were playing with. I wonder if they'll let some of this go and actually climb the trellis because that would be beautiful. There's actually one over here that might be a little bit better suited for going up the trellis. They have a grow bag right here that we have tried to put binding things in several times, but that soil needs work. That was new soil this year. And so that was supposed to be where the birdhouse gourd went. But maybe it's going to start over here. It's definitely time for Bentley to harvest his potatoes. That's something that I think we'll do when it cools down. He's got some mushrooms over here.

[00:11:20]Interesting.

[00:11:22]They have gone by, so I can't really tell what they were, but the potatoes are totally ready. Molly's sweet corn is totally gone. She harvested and ate all of it fresh. I think the plan is for her to take this out, remend, and then plant something again. I think she talked about putting in cucumbers or something else. We do have a long growing season, and so we can get two plantings and two harvests out of most beds. As long as we have roughly about 100 days left, there's a lot of things that we can plant. The peanuts are looking better than they have. They're at least twice as tall as they were. I think they've really been enjoying all the rain that we've gotten. They're still a lot of flowers. Can you see the yellow flowers?

[00:12:03]And so these guys need the long season.

[00:12:05]So something like this, I can't necessarily get to harvest because they take so long to come to maturity. But how cool is that? This is our first year with peanuts. Shika's popcorn has been popping off. It's had its tassels for a little while now and the silks are starting to turn brown. He was a little bit sad to hear that he has to wait for these guys to turn brown before he can harvest. He saw his sister picking off fresh corn almost every day and enjoying it. But popcorn's a little different.

[00:12:36]They harvested quite a few melons from the melon bed. We did have a yellow watermelon on this side and then there was some other kind of melon on this side. And that other kind of melon turned out to be disgusting. [laughter] I have no idea. I can't even remember what we planted, but it was some kind of cross that tasted like cardboard. It wasn't good at all. So, they harvested the watermelons and have actually replanted those same watermelons. I think the most popular thing coming into the house from their garden right now are peppers. There's some snacking peppers down here, and then they have some of the bigger ones, the bell pepper style right there. I think there's at least six pepper plants in that one bed.

[00:13:16]Molly did say she's finally starting to get Armenian cucumbers growing. So, here's a little baby one. And then I can see a bigger one behind.

[00:13:27]See that?

[00:13:29]Oh, that's exciting.

[00:13:34]You guys, you guys, [laughter] you're too much.

[00:13:45]>> [laughter] >> Oh, no. Don't do that. All right, here's the greenhouse. And then I think we're actually go out here, this planting space that I call the lane before we head into the greenhouse. So, things are going really well out here. I will say I'm pretty surprised with the amount of rain that we've gotten that I have still had to water in the green stock. There's something about the shape of these where rain doesn't get in very well. And it's one of my least favorite things about growing a green stock cuz you can't just not water it when it rains, which is one of the benefits of growing outside of a greenhouse is being able to take advantage of rainfall. But that's okay.

[00:14:27]I've managed to not kill the strawberries in this one over here.

[00:14:31]We've harvested all of the potatoes out of these grow bags and have put in sweet potatoes. And every single day, the sweet potatoes grow more and more. I do have six more of these square trelluses to put in over here. It's not necessary to trellis the sweet potato greens, but I wanted them to have enough greenery in order to support the root system, but also keep my pathway here more free.

[00:14:58]Remember, this is a little bit more organized space versus where we just came out of. So, this should be a wonderful harvest. When it comes time, there are both orange sweet potatoes and white sweet potatoes in here. When I harvested the potatoes out of these bags, what I did was take some cleanout out of my goat barn and put that in here and amended with that. Goat manure is a cool manure just like rabbit manure. So you can take it straight out of the barn and put it on the garden without composting it and it doesn't burn your plants. I absolutely love that about rabbits and goats. They are such underrated homestead animals. Over here, my peppers are finally starting to do something. So I have avarski peppers on this side and then on this side are pimento peppers. And the pimentos have gotten really big. I haven't noticed any of them turning red yet. This one has a wormhole in it.

[00:15:52]But that's the hope is that we will wait for these to turn red before harvest.

[00:15:58]I have noticed, however, that my avarskis are starting to turn red. Look at this plant. Totally loaded down and several red peppers down there. What I want out of my peppers this year is to be able to have red roasting peppers. I would like to be able to roast them and stick them in the freezer so I can use them later for different things. I saw a recipe for roasted red pepper Alfredo sauce and I've made it one time and I would love to make a lot more of it.

[00:16:29]You'll see I've got bush beans kind of scattered here and there. This one is a jade bush bean. I've only harvested one time off of this variety. It's starting to put on some more blooms. I've been kind of surprised what I haven't gotten off of it for how long it's been there.

[00:16:45]My spaghetti squash if I was going to say it's finally starting to peter out, but I think it's petered out. I think it's done. It had started to put on some new fruits. And you know, it'll probably mature this just fine. It actually looks like it's trying to. And look, it's trying to produce to the bitter end, but it's basically done. There are one, two, three, four, five more spaghetti squash on here, though. So, we've gotten quite a lot of harvest. There's actually our first harvest is still in the greenhouse. So, we'll look at those. But right here is where I think I need to harvest pretty soon. The trombonos have started to turn brown at the top here where they're connected to the plant.

[00:17:31]And so, I think that the first round is done. And I say first round cuz these guys are starting to put on a second round. And these plants actually look a lot healthier than those ones over there. I actually did plant quite a few spaghetti squash down here, but the beetles really kind of ravaged the seedlings and they haven't gotten much bigger than this. I've got one over here that is trying. But again, that's beetle damage. But this living vine that you see under here, this is actually a trombonino.

[00:18:02]See that? [laughter] So I guess that's what's going to take over over here and I'll let it couple trombons are stuck in the fencing. So this is one that we'll have to harvest and eat or process right away.

[00:18:15]Trombanscino squash is basically a butternut as far as flavor goes. And so that's what we use it for. Anything that you would use a butternut for. There's a trombantino squash soup that I make that my kids really like. Serve it with crusty bread. So good. Most of them are hanging here so that they're really long. And then some of them, this one's a little bit shorter. We've got some of them growing along on the ground that are a little bit more crooked in shape.

[00:18:40]It's not really a big deal. They can grow however they grow. They're just a little bit easier to store when they're longer like this versus all curled up and tangled up. Trombanscino also can be harvested and eaten green, exactly like a zucchini, except I find that they are better than a zucchini because they're less watery. You can freeze them and they still have substance to them and bite and they have a better texture.

[00:19:05]They're just not as spongy. I really like them. I prefer them over something like a zucchini. So, I may actually harvest this second flush green so that we can put away some zucchini for zucchini breads and things. They don't even really need to be pollinated to be harvested. Like, this is how big they are right before they put on that flower. This flower probably opened yesterday. So, it's only barely pollinated and it hasn't probably grown very much in the last 24 hours. So, yeah, that's what they look like without even being pollinated. Down here is another squash bed which is also still trying to produce.

[00:19:43]Can you hear the bees?

[00:19:50]This is the autumn frost squash. I think this particular plant has gone by the wayside or at least it's close. This is another one that I'm thinking we'll harvest a few off of. Before we think about harvesting though, we will finish our tour of the lane. I put in some Armenian cucumbers just like what Molly is growing in her garden down here. And I think this guy is ready to set free from his cage. I put these over to help protect them from the birds. And I think this one is big enough to just let it go. Again, cucumber beetles have been a problem. So, I don't know that we're going to get all three that I planted, but there's at least this one for now.

[00:20:30]People have asked me what I'm doing about the cucumber beetles, and I haven't done anything. And part of it is is I've sort of want to help create an ecosystem where whatever needs to predate on the cucumber beetles figures out that they're here and comes and takes care of them. Even organic insecticides, they're non-discriminate.

[00:20:52]They will kill things that are beneficial bugs. And that just ultimately over time that makes more work for me. So, this might be kind of sad this year. I'm still getting harvest. I'm still actually quite pleased with how these uh beds are doing, but I have the long haul in mind.

[00:21:10]I would like to make sure that what I'm doing here isn't going to just cause more issues for me later and more work for me later. I was reading too that if you don't mulch, you'll get more cucumber beetles because their larvae have an easier time crawling around on the dirt versus if there was a lot of mulch there. And it just so happens this is the first year I haven't mulched and this is the first year I'm dealing with cucumber beetles like this. So keep that in mind. I mean I have mulched some areas with some hay and those areas are the ones I really don't have cucumber beetles. They're mostly out here. These are newly established beds. Like for most of them, this is the first season that they've grown anything. And that can be tough to begin with because the nutritional balance isn't really there.

[00:21:53]The microbial balance isn't really there. So the plants, they're not optimal. and a sicker plant is going to be a pest magnet. And you can see the results of that here. This is just part of building a new space. This does not last forever. So, if you're a new gardener and you're experiencing some of the same things, try not to worry about it. Give yourself and your beds and the local, you know, bug population time to really balance out. It takes time.

[00:22:20]Kentucky Wonder pole beans still looking like garbage. I really think that we're going to be pulling these out soon. I've said, "Oh, I don't know if I will because look at all the flowers." But for all the flowers that I'm seeing or have seen, I'm really not getting very many beans at all out of this space.

[00:22:36]It's probably about a half gallon every week, which with this big space, it's goodness 20 ft long. Oh, look at the geese.

[00:22:45]I don't think I've really seen a big flying bee like that. Usually it's one or two. That's nice. Anyway, we have I think a 10ft bed, a 10ft bed, and then a half of a 10ft bed. So, 25 ft of beans.

[00:22:57]I should be getting a lot more, especially with all the rain that we've gotten. I know this looks like we should be getting more, but I've been seeing flowers like this for weeks. Oh, look.

[00:23:05]Dang it. See, this is my problem. This is my problem because of the cucumber beetle situation. I'm not positive that if I replanted that things would go well out here. So, that's what's been hanging me up as well is I'm getting something versus potentially nothing if I pull all these out and attempt to replant and the cucumber beetles eat them anyway. So, that's been the struggle. I do have more beans over here underneath the tomato.

[00:23:29]So, I worry less about what's happening here because of this. These are my favorite beans, the Kalema bush beans.

[00:23:36]These actually did take a while to get going, too, but they seem to be handling the beetles relatively well. They're still causing some problems, but they're growing pretty well despite that. So, right here, I think this is 36 ft in all cuz there's a couple of 8ft beds in here. And these are all tomatoes up top and then the bush beans down below. So that's quite a lot of beans. I don't know that I necessarily need to worry about that. I have considered pulling these out, remending and sticking some of my fall and winter vegetables out here, but I haven't fully decided that that's what I'm going to do. Look at that beauty doing her thing bright and early.

[00:24:17]Anyway, my tomatoes have seen better days, too. As I've mentioned, we've gotten tons and tons of rain, which is perfect for disease to absolutely run rampant. This particular plant here is an ox heart tomato, and it has been struggling for the majority of the season. We've had a lot of blossom and rot, which looks like it may actually have solved itself. I talked about this on maybe it was the last garden tour, if I can remember right. When you get a lot of rain, a lot of times it can just wash nutrients out of the soil. Sometimes plants like tomatoes will get blossom end rot where the end just it's got this rot on the bottom [clears throat] right where the blossom is. It's very wellnamed uh problem but once the rain kind of slows down the plants are able to actually take up more calcium and that can go away. So I don't know if you can see it up here that there that's blossom and rot and then these fruits here are a little bit younger and they look okay. I literally haven't done anything to this bed. It does appear that it is time for me to come out and harvest. Even though the plants are sick, they've been doing okay. Enough for me to harvest what I need. I have put up quite a lot of crushed tomatoes.

[00:25:29]Look at that beauty. Oh, so pretty.

[00:25:33]That's a big one. Dr. Witches. We actually haven't had a ton of splitting with all the rain that we've gotten. And that's been very nice. That big boy.

[00:25:42]This plant down here is the volunteer that we like plucked out of the side of the bed and stuck in the end here. It's a gorgeous slicer that reminds me of the Belgian giant, but I don't think it is all Belgian giant. I don't think it's necessarily pure. Part of why I think that is the shape, but also the color.

[00:26:01]This is a little bit more red than my Belgian giants normally are. It's like an orangey red where my Belgian giants are a lot more pinky and they have more of like an heirloom type shape. This just looks slightly different to me. I don't know, maybe it is the same thing, but it's a slicer regardless, which is exciting.

[00:26:26]Into the greenhouse we go, where I do need to have my husband come in here and help me weed whack a little bit more. I do have weed fabric down in here, but the weeds are a lot in our area and so they come up through it. The mud comes up through the weed fabric as well and then seed falls on top of it and wheat fabric takes maintenance. I guess your first season it can feel like a miracle but then after that it is work to maintain and I mean grass is work to maintain too but to be honest grass is easier to maintain. This is the only bed of onions that I have left to harvest. I have harvested the other ones and we'll go look at them. This particular bed has a lot of issues with the soil that I will be working on once these guys come out, which they're pretty much ready to come out. Can you see what I'm doing here is pinching the neck of the onion and mushing my fingers back and forth.

[00:27:18]And if we get a lot of slippage, [snorts] that's a good sign that these are ready to harvest. Oh yeah, that one too. Yeah, we can pull those out. The bigger onions that I grew were in here, and I actually laid them over in this bed to dry out a little bit more. This is different than the curing method that I used last year, but it's working. These guys are drying out. I'll probably just leave them here.

[00:27:40]I will need this space pretty soon, and I can move them. I've got a few different spots where I can move these, but for now, this works out. My Malibar spinach is trying to take over the peach tree. These are the bonfire peaches.

[00:27:52]I've got two of them here. They're a white peach variety and I think it'll be about a month and then we can start to harvest. Yeah. Check out the Malibar spinach. These were all volunteers.

[00:28:04]They're finally doing their thing with their flower buds, too. These are so funny looking. Like little jelly beans.

[00:28:10]Gorgeous, though. And this is going to fill out even more. I'm actually thinking about preserving some of the Malbar spinach this year. I've never done that, but I think it could be nice to have some canned spinach on hand. The mosquitoes are really bad in here, too.

[00:28:23]They weren't bad on the lane, but they're bad in here and they were bad in the chaos garden. Used to be called the perennial garden. It still is that, but it's both. I have a volunteer cucumber in here that I wasn't sure was going to live because of beetle damage, but it has persevered. We do have some beetles in here, but not as many. That's a very, very immature cucon right there. Wh Well, it was. There's more up here.

[00:28:50]And I do have some more kalema bush beans down here. These guys are actually thriving. I think these are kaleas.

[00:28:57]But look how much better these look.

[00:28:59]This is the difference between established soil and soil that is still being worked on. Don't think we have any beans yet, but they're coming. This was a volunteer tomato that's actually growing outside of this bed here, and it's taken over about half of this trellis, which is incredible. This is a blue cream berry cherry tomato. And what I've been doing with these is actually roasting them in a pan with some garlic and some olive oil and then freezing that. Letting the tomatoes char and get a lovely sweet flavor from being condensed down is so good. It's called tomato conci and it's wonderful over pasta. I think I neglected to mention this space here in the last garden tour.

[00:29:43]These are the mashed potato squash that I stuck in here about 6 weeks ago. It looks like we are finally going to start to get some right there. Got a lot of ants in here. Hey, ants pollinate as well. But just in case, we'll take this male flower, which has the pollen on the inside, and we'll pull off the petals so that we have more access to the pollen here. This.

[00:30:10]And then we will pollinate.

[00:30:14]One pest that I haven't seen a lot of are squash bugs or squash vine bore. And I need to knock on wood because the squash vine bore has ruined our plants in the past. We had a little bit of squash bugs in the beginning of the season and I see a little bit of evidence here now. Look at that squash bug eggs right there.

[00:30:36]But we haven't seen any signs of squash vine bore, which is a blessing cuz those guys are a lot harder to manage than squash bugs in my experience. This is what those squash plants look like from this side. They are a lot more bushy than I thought they'd be. They're very healthy and doing well. I think that that one little fruit is the first one that I've seen, but there will be a lot more to come. Got some LMA beans growing over here. Not really on purpose, but this is where I grew them last year, and they are very persistent little buggers.

[00:31:12]They love to grow. Look at them. So many flowers. There's even some pods that are ready over here. Look at that, y'all. These mosquitoes are eating me alive. But these limema beans are I think they call Christmas calico limema beans. They're really pretty. And I've just left them for now. I do have some more of those armpit slash kajari melons in here. They're not doing as well partially because of beetles, but again, I didn't mulch in here. I know it kind of looks like it because there's a lot of wood in the soil that I used, but I didn't mulch. This area, this greenhouse does have a little bit more beneficial bug activity. I do have praying mantis in here, which is nice. And I have seen ladybugs as well. This is another area that I would like to harvest really soon. And these are my forever shallots.

[00:32:04]And I've called them that because they just won't flop over like the onions that I've grown to be harvested. These have been in here since August. I think they the seed I think I started in August last year. August or September.

[00:32:20]So they've been here nearly a year.

[00:32:23]Aliums are bianial plants and so they'll live a couple of years easily and usually they won't flower until their second year. But because they grew a little bit last season, went through a winter, and now they're living this season. Technically, there is this is their second season. And so, they've been very insistent on flowering. I have taken these flowerheads off already. And the plants are putting up secondary flowerheads cuz I guess this is what they want to do, which is probably why they're not exactly flopping over. These flower stocks are quite rigid. And so, I think that might be what's kind of propping them up. I'm hoping that we get some kind of harvest, but I don't I don't know. It doesn't look like there's very much bulbing happening down there, but I'm getting eager to just reclaim this space back. So, I don't think we'll harvest this today, but soon. Here are the spaghetti squash that I took off a couple of weeks ago. I set them out here so they could cure just a little bit longer, get a little bit more yellow, and the rind a little bit more hard, and mostly so this stem could get dry. And these guys look like they're ready to come inside.

[00:33:35]All right, let's rip the band-aid off.

[00:33:49]There's nothing in here.

[00:33:56]This is what happens sometimes when onions go to flower and you don't really get much of a harvest. Now, when I've had my larger onions go to flower, a lot of times there's at least something left. And I mean, maybe I don't know. I don't know that this is necessarily worth it. Sucks cuz I feel like I wasted a year's worth of growing space. Not really, cuz I did get some seed. But do I want to replant this again? I don't know. Maybe it would be better if I planted it in spring and harvested it like the same year. I think this was poor planting time.

[00:34:44]We're running. We're running. Hi, Lofa.

[00:34:51]Are there things I could have done with the shallots besides feed them to the pigs? Probably. I'm sure that I could have cut off the ends of all of those shallots or maybe even the whole thing, greens and all, and dried them and powdered them into something like onion powder. Some of the same people that are averse to a little bit of a weedy garden are some of the same people that would tell you to absolutely exhaust yourself to do everything that you can to preserve literally everything coming out of your garden. And honestly, you can't have both. At least I can't. When I had planted these, I thought I'd be able to harvest them, set them aside, and just let them cure. That was the plan for them. I didn't plan to powder the whole plant and preserve them, especially at this time of year. This time of year, I need to focus on getting that greenhouse prepped and ready for the next season so that hopefully we can have a good fall harvest. So, turning these, you know, unwanted onions into bacon makes the most sense for me right now. If I had unlimited time, I would love to make onion powder out of that, but I do not.

[00:35:51]And so, I'm choosing to put that time towards amending the greenhouse and getting that cleaned up this time of year.

[00:36:02]You can't eat my camera. No, ma'am. Are you jealous? [laughter] Oh, next harvest is yours. Okay.

[00:36:17]You and your smile. You want to show them your tomato? We have quite the porch tomato that I keep really not updating you guys on. I think this is supposed to mature red. And we don't have any mature fruits yet. And this is how my key lime is doing. We have leaves but no fruit. I can't really blame it. I thought I killed it this past winter.

[00:36:48]Warden, when did you find your voice?

[00:36:52]Sir, is it that Nubian? Did he teach you how to yell? Did he?

[00:36:58]Oh, rude.

[00:37:01]These look just like a Dutch fork pie pumpkin except a lot smaller. Like a tenth the size.

[00:37:10][music] [music] [music] >> [music] [music] [music] [music] >> The mosquitoes are still trying to eat me alive. So, I think I'm going to stop right here [music] and come out to harvest the transino later. But, I will film that. I'll put that at the end of the week vlog. Hopefully things are growing well wherever you are. I'll see you guys again soon.

[00:38:19]>> [music]