re: The 2021 Garden Thread

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My wife loves the flower they make and also the flowers on the okra I plant every year.

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The first time I grew okra I thought that the flowers reminded me of hibiscus. Then I found out they are related. I would’ve never guessed.

French yellow and PrimeArkFreedom blackberries picked yesterday.

Nourse Farms

You can still buy PrimeArk Freedom this year. Limit 5. Nourse Farms sells as a plug plant not just a root and I’ve had great results. Plus I call when I have questions and they help tremendously. If you get on the list around October you can order normally 25 each. They sell fast. I’ll plant another 50 next year. Just enjoy it.

I have 50 PrimeArk Freedom and 50 Caddo, both thornless and I’m picking large quantities of both. Last ten days I’ve picked roughly 30 lbs of each and will have another 0-15 lbs of each ready by this weekend.

Thank you to all who post on this thread.

First year growing eggplant. I have black beauty, which I think is harvested at 4-5". However, I bought the plant from a local nursery who grows from organic seeds. Plant was labeled as "mini black beauty" so I'm thinking I need to harvest when the fruits are egg sized. Any suggestions?

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I've got the one bush (although its pretty big now) and I'm thinking of adding at least one more. I may add one to the chicken pen and protect it for the first year. It would get fertilized from the chicken crap and provide some much needed shade for the chickens.

I haven't picked any blackberries this week. With all the rain we got, most of the ripe ones were towards the bottom of the plant and ended up spoiling from sitting in water. The bush is still has plenty of berries on it and shoots new flowers everyday. I probably won't ever have enough at once to do anything with but the boys love going out there each day to see if there is another they can eat right off the bush.

There are only 2 or 3 that are on the ground. The problem was that the water came up high and stayed there for about 2-3 days.

I'll check out that video. Thank

Edit: After watching some of those videos, I'll have to go home today and tip most of my canes. Some of them are getting close to 6ft. I also may try and split a part of my bush to put in the run.

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I've found the yard longs cook down very well like any green bean and is an excellent choice to grill. I cut them in 6 in. pieces, hit them with some olive oil, salt, pepper and garlic powder and grill like any vegetable

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Baking and grilling will probably be what I do with them the most.

I don't have a pressure canner, so I won't bother trying to pickle or can them. We don't eat too much pickles beans anyway. I do have a vacuum sealer, though. Do they freeze well?

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Do they freeze well?

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The only way I've frozen them is cooked down like regular green beans with some onion, garlic, ham or sausage and sometimes I'll add carrots and small chunks of potatoes.

I find they freeze better for later use without the potatoes and carrots since those vegetables tend to get mealy when frozen.

It is recommended to blanch the beans in boiling water for a short time if you are going to freeze them fresh for later use, but I've not done that and prefer to can them into Mason jars to save freezer space. I can put canned beans straight into my pantry with no need to take up refrigerator of freezer space.

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Any hints on getting tomatoes to ripen on the plants? It seems like

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I’ve always heard that reducing watering and pruning will speed up the process. The former not always within our control. Especially the last couple of weeks.