I appreciate your tip on saving beans. When my lovely neighbor passed suddenly last fall I saved some of her runner bean pods while clearing her garden. Now they are growing on my archway as a tribute to a dear fellow gardener. ❤
I’ve been following your videos all year and I can’t tell you what a difference it has made! I’ve never been successful at growing tomatoes before, but this year I have bucketfuls and I’m filling the freezer. My other veggies have done so well that I haven’t bought any vegetables for our family of five for months! I’m so chuffed and so grateful. You make gardening such fun and your videos are memorable and great to watch. Many, many thanks 😊
Hey, Ben, I've been using your videos all year to start my very first successful garden and I've been able to get my very first tomatoes, sweet potatoes, strawberries, squash, and so much more after last year's severe failure. Forever thankful for your videos and I can't wait for more to be posted so I can further expand my garden!
I depend on your videos Ben, but I have a bit of advice for you this time! I live in the Pacific NW so I use filbert (AKA hazelnut) shells as mulch. Slugs used to shred my Hosta plants and my strawberries but not anymore. Hazelnut shells are available on the internet now. Slugs cannot slither across the sharp edges of the shells. I don't use very many, but rather, I just sprinkle them around the plant and refresh them every spring. I have not seen a single slimy trail anywhere! Thank you for all your wonderful teaching!
Most people that live around me don't get started until late April or May, and they are finished after one season. I usually have my first crops in, and second crops planted before they start, and then, I keep going for as long as I can. My garden is smaller than most rural gardens in my area, but I yield more with less space, and have more variety. I grow more than I can eat, so nearly half goes to neighbors, friends, and family. I probably have enough food preserved to last until next summer. Next year, I plan on having three crops of tomatoes. To do it, I have to have tomatoes in the ground by Feb 20th. Last frost is April 10th. So, I will have to cheat a bit.
I love refrigerator pickles! I mix in to your recipe, some chopped onion and a few mustard seeds. Sometimes I use half white and half apple cider vinegar. There are so many options, even cumin, turmeric or curry powder could be used. I have had a good cucumber harvest this Summer in Zone 9b/10a by using 50% shade cloth and as it is cooling down, no shade cloth is needed. The plants are still putting on fruit. I want to try a recipe for Cucumber Limeade. Here's the recipe: 3 large cucumbers, peeled and cut into chunks, 1/3 cup lime juice, one teaspoon stevia liquid or 1/2 cup regular sugar. Put cucumber chunks into a blender/food processor and add enough water to cover chunks and mix until as much of the seeds and pulp are ground up. Sieve cucumber mixture to remove extra pulp and seeds and put liquid into a one gallon pitcher/jar. Discard solids. Add water to pitcher/jar to fill close to the top. Add juice and sweetener. Stir and refrigerate.
I used to use vinegar for pickling, but several years ago I discovered the delights of "lacto fermentation" - an ancient, traditional method. IMHO, the taste is FAR SUPERIOR to vinegar-based pickles. Dead easy to ferment - AND salt is far less expensive than vinegar!
@@GrowVegyes, last year we got the weight kit for wide mouth Ball canning jars and it makes some tasty kraut. Each jar holds 2lbs of shredded cabbage after it’s been bruised with some salt.
I'm in central Alabama, zone 7B. My late summer squash and cantaloupe has started flowering and fruiting. I am still picking a lot of pole beans, and my cherry tomato plants are still producing. My pepper plants are producing a crazy amount of peppers, and my turnips are bulbing up. I just finished collecting a bunch of basil seeds for next year's garden. Seeds that I sowed last Monday for Kohlrabi, Pak Choi, Komatsuna, and Yellow Heart Winter Choy have sprouted, and have been thinned down. I also sowed seeds for golden beetroot, and am waiting for them to germinate. It is still too hot for planting cabbage and carrots, not from lack of trying. I'll resow seeds for them after it has cooled down a bit. Also, I will be sowing tomato seeds for an off season experiment in my polytunnel greenhouse, and succession crop of turnips, golden beetroot, and kohlrabi. I am going to try growing through the winter. If it fails, I get an early start in January, and have crops in the ground by mid February. And so the cycle begins again. Last year, I managed to keep my garden growing for ten months out of the year. I'm more knowledgeable, and better prepared for winter gardening this year. That, and I am stubborn. A little snow and ice won't deter me.
I'm in VA so a bit colder than you. I'm getting ready to plant some fall greens and getting all my last of summer in. I have cantaloupe a this year ! First time I've ever got them to grow. How do you harvest the basil seeds ? I have some starting to flower Thanks Bama ! Tonie
@@toniedalton5448 After the seed pods turn brown, or mostly brown, cut them from the plant. Over a collection bowl, hold the stem with one hand, pinch the stem with the other, and pull the stem. the seed pods will peel off easily. Next you need a sieve and bowl to collect the seeds. fill the sieve part way with the seed pods, and hold it over the bowl. Then work the sed pods inside the sieve to break them apart. The seeds will drop through the screen into the bowl, and most of the waste material will remain inside the sieve.
Great advice :) thx for all the reminders! Grew my 1st summer crops as my 1st year as a gardener, and were saving lots of our faves (and even things we didn’t love) for the next season. We’re buying new varieties that we’d like to try for fall & winter. You never know when you’ll meet a new gardener, we love sharing the abundance!
I loved watching you in your kitchen. I, for one, would like to see what you do with everything you grow. I love watching you and I learn from you, even though I am not a beginning gardener.........been gardening all of my life, 50 plus years anyway. Now to watch your video you put on last week for sowing in September.
I have fallen for rye as a great cover crop. Last year I sowed some every month from August to February and it all did well. I particularly like it where the courgettes and brassicas have been. As soon as the frost gets them, in goes the rye. Though I do have to net because of rats and deer who love a free meal. The following year all the crops where the rye was the previous winter have done extremely well.
Ben, I made your pickles out of my sweet lime pickles !! Oh my thank you ! I have canned several jars of them for later with my last cucumbers coming in.
I’m trying Greek Oregano this year as a possible cover crop in my low lying beds and I’ve been preparing a wide stretch to an outer border for sunflowers, I’ve heard they can help break clay soil down without too much interference on my part. I’ve heard caidon radish can also help, if you’ve an area you can set aside and allow to decompose over the winter months, hopefully I’ll be trying that later next year.
A recipe I tried last year that you'll love. PICKLED GREEN TOMATOES Those little green ones that are a bit green around the tops. Take the stalks off. Fill sterilised jar (honey jar for size) with the green tomatoes. For 2 jars. Add the following into a pan and bring to a boil. 3 garlic cloves. 1 tablespoon of mustard seeds. 1 tablespoon light brown sugar, 1 teaspoon salt, 10 peppercorns, half of cider vinegar. Pour boiling liquid over the tomatoes and screw the lids down immediately. Store until cooled. Don't let those little pearls of deliciousness ever escape your larder.
Self saved seeds are also more adapted to your climate. I live in Sweden where we can some years have very cold winters. I save as many seeds as I can. Carrots, dill, potatoes (for seed come spring) lettuce, spinach, onions, I save some of my hard neck garlic for next fall season planting, squash, cucumbers, tomatoes etc. etc. etc... Lots more but, these are the ones that come first to mind. My potatoes especially have really benefited from saving my own potatoes for seed potatoes the following yr. Since I do the no dig method or Ruth Stout method, it took my potatoes 2 yrs. to get used to that method as well as the climate. This season I did a comparison with store bought seed potatoes and my own seed potatoes. From the "new" potatoes I harvested barely 10 kg. from a bed the size of 2 meters x 4 meters. From my own seed potatoes growing in a bed that is 2 meters x 10 meters. (yes, bigger than the store bought seed potatoes) I received nearly 60 kg. of fairly good sized potatoes. Less damaged to them as well so... I feel that proved my theory of self saving seed being more productive.
I grow field/dun/cow peas as a cover crop. They survive my (-8C, deep frost but rare snow) winters and we eat the terminal shoots/leaves all winter. Dont forget fermenting as a way to preserve veg
I'm planning a 7x5m growing space, which maybe biting a bit more off than I can chew but your videos are helping me prepare for what I'll be doing next year! 🙏
Great video as always Ben, thank you. Especially the pinning down of strawberry runners with staples, always drove me mad that they would spring out of the pot and I never thought of that. The hesitation I have with saving seed is cross-pollination. I have different varieties of tomatoes; chillies/peppers, lettuces, broccoli etc. Unfortunately the bees will fly between all of the flowers without discriminating and, from what I've understood, that messes up the varieties and makes what you may get next year totally unpredictable.
Yes, this can be the case. It's worth growing just one variety on its own if you plan to save seeds - lots of varieties close by can give less predictable results, though some gardeners won't mind this.
Ooh some good reminders Ben. I for one need to go protect my beautiful Marina di Chioggia squash with a tile. Such a beautiful delicious variety and I only have two on the large plant and one is at ground level. I also need to water with nematodes to try and get my slug population down before putting out the winter greens and overwintering stuff. They have had enough of my produce this year already ☹
Have you ever tried planting skirret? It is tasty and easy to grow. I saved hundreds of seeds to share with friends and it is a perennial. You dig up the roots. Cut off the tap roots then replant the root crown. The tap roots get bigger each season. If you leave them too long in the ground, they will get tough and woody. You can plant in the fall or spring. I planted in the spring and harvested some in the fall and some in the spring. The ones I left until the next fall were too woody and not tasty. The roots are white and taste like a cross between a carrot and a parsnip. First year they were about the circumference of a pencil, second year more like a marker. I didn't get to go any further because we moved and I lost my garden space.
A while ago I cut away some parsnip stalks. Later I developped a nasty, big blister on my wrist. I didn,t cook that day. So it wasn,t caused by hot steam. This happened twice. Can this really be caused by juices in the stalks? By the way you are our hero who talks to us late at night
I’m not really sure what that is. I wasn’t aware that parsnip soup could give such a nasty reaction. Are you sure it wasn’t a different plant that looked a bit like parsnip and has a nasty reaction?
I just cut the parsnip stalk. After some research I found that parsnips contain furocoumarines. It is in the juice. No problem if you touch it, but when your skin is in the sun afterwards you might get (severe) reactions. So in soups there is no problemen at all. It is a question of fototoxicity. Put on long sleeves and gloves and everybody will be ok
I have pinned white pineberry babies in pots and they are already growing new leaves. I’m like you hoping to save bean seed this year. Great update Ben thanks as always. Happy gardening 👩🌾, Ali 🇨🇦
As always, a very nice video. But if I may give you an advice on pickled cucumber; salting the slices of cucumber overnight, will save a lot more of the crunch. Especially when you make a large batch for long time storage. But for long time storage you would also have to wipe the rim before closing. Adding sliced onions and mustard seeds in the jar is also very tasty. ❤ from Holland
@@QisGoogle when I slice them, I sprinkle with salt, and put a strainer in a bowl, when I have very tiny cucumbers and want to leave them whole, I use salt water.
@@Esther-kn4ru ok, that’s great! I should be harvesting my cucumbers later this week (mainly tiny ones & one largish one), so I’ll give this a try. Many thanks for your kind advice 🤗
Good morning Ben, what a great feeling to be harvesting from all the dedicated planning and sowing during the season. Love the tip to place a slate under the fruit/vegetable. I do find I have that problem with pumpkin as they take a bit longer for growing, will remember to solve my problem. We are 'eventually' sort of at the end of our cold season, as I said before July has been extreme and it pushed over to August :( it was just not pleasant. I have to admit I do not like the 'cold'. but now, there is a enthusiasm starting to move inside me and as the Asian lilies are showing tips of new growth I will have to get myself into gear and get going. We really enjoy eating garden beans, you can pick them young not so full of seeds. We also like to save some pods on the plants for planting next season. Nothing in life is easily earned, you just have to work away in all areas to succeed. Thank you for sharing your growing tips with us, it makes our mistakes less. Happy gardening and enjoy your Sunday. Many blessings and kind regards.
Another good one. Will rewatch when I’m able to be outside. Atm I’m struggling with health issues so in bed watching RU-vid and sleeping lol Catch ya soon Ben the veg man…
You might think about indulging in a freeze dryer. Best way to preserve squash, imo. I've never been able to preserve zucchini, cucumbers, etc., long term where they didn't end up mushy or too chewy (not a huge fan of pickles) til I bought a freeze dryer. I'm Zone 5-6, and just now planting my cold hardy stuff in the greenhouse to try for a late fall harvest for the first time. Thanks for the tip on cabbages.
@@GrowVeg We just bought one this year, and we've saved a lot of money by freeze drying food before it goes off, something to do with food when I've way over planted (again), and we buy up a lot when foods are in season and much cheaper. Like in summer, you can't GIVE zucchinis away. The neighbors start hiding, because THAT woman is outside with her damn zucchinis again, LOL Very cheap at the store and road side stands. In winter, zukes are high as $4 US a pound.
Good Morning my dear!!! May the Lord bless you with this beautiful day and may he guide you and your family and I pray to God to give you a perfect gift of health and life that your day is full of happiness.
