When life hands you cucumbers, you make....pickles!

'Tis the season for cucumbers... and oh boy, what a season it's been so far!!! In the last week alone, I have harvested almost 20 cucumbers. That's only the beginning, I see tons and tons more on the plants that are at various stages of development.

Needless to say, soon we will be up to our eyeballs in cucumbers. There is no way we could ever hope to eat that many before they rot, so what do we do with all those cucumbers? Make pickles of course!

Pickling cucumbers is super easy and doesn't take much time.

Prepping and sterilizing everything is what takes the longest.

After that, stuffing the jars full and twisting on the tops is very quick. My husband and I have this process down to a science and it only takes us a few hours from the time we start washing the jars and cucumbers, to the time we're enjoying hearing the sound of the seals on them popping.

Last year we tried making pickles for the first time ever, and it was a great success. The pickles turned out awesome but we ate them so fast that they hardly lasted through to now. (We were trying not to eat them throughout the winter so we could save them for our summer burgers!) This year I decided to grow way more cucumber plants than I did last year so that we could make more pickles than we did last year.

So far this season, we have made 21 jars of pickles, some sweet, some dill and some HOT. I'm not sure how many jars we'll end up with by the end of the season, but now I need  to find room to store them!

We really love the pickles we made last year but we also wanted to experiment with new recipes this year. We can't find many recipes for pickles, most recipes on the internet are pretty much the same as what we've already got. If you have a good pickle recipe, please, please share it!!

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You need flowers for vegetables

 A few weeks ago I read an article that a woman wrote about her gardening experiences. In it, she talked about how, when she first started out gardening, she had never been a fan of flower gardening. She had a huge vegetable garden and that was her gardening passion. In fact, she said that at that time, there were hardly any flowering perennials or annuals on her property at all. She also said that none of her neighbors were gardeners either.

She talked about how every year her vegetable plants would grow huge and have tons of flowers, but would hardly produce any vegetables. I'm not sure what her "A Ha" moment was, but somehow she realized that the problem with her vegetables was the fact that she didn't have any other flowering plants in her yard to attract the pollinators. Since realizing this, she has started adding flowering plants to her gardens and swears that this has made all the difference in her vegetable production.

This story really got me thinking. In order to get the best results from your vegetable garden, you need other flowers around too. This makes so much sense! You need flowers for vegetables, and not just the flowers on the vegetable plants themselves. I know, this might sound like a no brainer for some people. For me, I never thought of it this way before and I found this concept very interesting.

Since reading the story, I have really started to notice the plethora of pollinators in my flower gardens. Some of the flowering plants have so many pollinators on them that I don't want to go near them (because most of the pollinators could sting me)! This made me curious so I walked over to my vegetable garden. Wow, what a difference! I mean, sure there were lots of pollinators flying from flower to flower in the vegetable garden too, but not nearly as many as I see swarming the blooms in my flower gardens.

I have always had my vegetable garden separate from my perennial garden. Now that I think about it, I have no good reason for this. I guess it makes it easier for me to till the vegetable garden in the spring, and I like having a dedicated space for planting vegetables. I usually have pretty great success with my vegetable garden, but could it be better?


Since I am all about experimentation in the gardens, next year I plan to plant flowering annuals mixed in with my veggies. I will choose the flowering plants that the pollinators seem to love the best. I can't wait to see if it makes a difference for my vegetable production.




Note: I wish I could find the article that I read and reference it here, but I was unsuccessful in my searching.

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Early to Mid August Blooms

Here are some of my favorite blooms from August so far. Most of the annuals I started from seed are at their peek now!

Iris (blooming in August!?!)

Flowering Maple

Zinnia

Hardy Hibiscus

Hardy Hibiscus

Canna Lily

Black Eyed Susans

Eyeball plant

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Growing cucumbers on a trellis

I have always let my cucumbers grow on the ground. The problem with this is that once the plants start to get really large, they take up a lot of room.

Last year I had a long row in the garden dedicated to cucumbers. I trained the vines to grow into each other and tried to keep them within their row (and not let them overtake the tomatoes).



This worked pretty well, but by the end of the summer I could barely reach some of the cucumbers or walk on that side of the garden because the row became so wide.

This year I decided to experiment with the cucumbers and try growing some of them on trellises. The only thing I was worried about was that the cucumbers would become too heavy for the vine and break off. But since I love to experiment (and I had a bunch of seedlings to spare) I figured what the heck, let's see what happens!


What a great success this has been for me. I am so happy with the way the vines have taken over the trellises and I've gotten a TON of cucumbers so far with more coming all the time.

There is much more room in my garden and the cucumbers haven't taken over any other plants.


Next year, I plan to grow all of my cucumbers on trellises and I am also going to try this with squash. I can't image all the room I will have!

Note: Not all cucumbers and squash are vine climbing types. You can also buy bush varieties, which will not climb a trellis. (Just in case you wanted to try this method.)


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Trim your tomato plants for maximum tomato production

Sucker on tomato plant (center stem)

If your tomato plants are large, overgrown and haven't been producing many tomatoes, it might be time to give them a trim.

My dad always told me that if you remove the suckers from tomato plants, you will get more tomatoes.

What's a sucker you ask?

A sucker on a tomato plant is the extra growth that appears at the base of a stem and branch joint (the middle stem in this photo). Suckers will grow to become a mature branch, with flowers and even tomatoes.

The reason to remove these suckers is because they compete for the energy available to the plant. This extra growth can cause your tomatoes to be smaller and overall tomato production could be lower.

Once you remove the suckers, your plant can dedicate more energy to producing tomatoes rather than growing new leaves. Suckers can also make a tomato plant look overgrown and cause it to become very heavy.

On plants that are large with a tons of leaves, I take it one step further and remove some of the foliage as well. It's a good habit to remove any yellowing leaves and leaves that are touching the ground (which will ultimately turn yellow anyway). This will also help to give your tomato plants a boost.

Sucker on tomato plant (center stem)

Here are a few tips for trimming your tomato plants:

• Small suckers can be easily removed by pinching them out with your fingers. For larger suckers, it's best to cut them off with clippers to avoid damaging the main stem. 

• You don't need to remove every sucker on the plant. I tend to remove most of the suckers that are lower on the plant, and a few towards the top.

• I trim my tomato plants at least once during the summer. Sometimes I will do it a few times for tomato plants that are huge.

• Don't trim off too many of the leaves. Plants need their leaves to grow! Also, not all tomato plants need trimming, if your plants are small and don't have a ton of leaves, it's best not to trim them at all. 

• If you're happy with how your plant looks and the number of tomatoes it's been producing, then there's no need to trim it.

Harvest - Cucumber and Squash

The bounty from my garden is getting better each week. Lately, in addition to the beans and tomatoes, I have been busy harvesting cucumbers. You probably notice the color on most of these cucumbers is yellow/orange. I think this is due to possible cross-pollination with my squash.

Last year, in addition to regular cucumbers, we had lemon cucumbers. Lemon cucumbers are yellow and round and look similar to a lemon. There was definitely some cross-pollination between those and the regular cucumbers because we had lots of yellow cucumbers and some on the regular cucumber vine were also round. Crazy! Now this year we have orange cucumbers. This makes for some very pretty and colorful jars of canned pickles!

I have also added my first squash to the harvest. The seeds for this were marked "winter squash", but this sure looks like a pumpkin to me...























I can't wait to see what it tastes like. Oh, I almost forgot, broccoli continues to be on the menu lately too.


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My compost bin has magical powers

Every year I have lots of volunteer plants that grow out of my compost bin. They usually end up getting covered up and eventually die. But this year, strange things have been happening in my compost bin...

For starters, the squash growing in my garden is pathetic compared to the monster squash (left) that seeded itself and now spans almost half of my compost bin.

The leaves of this giant squash are providing a nice shady growing environment to my caladium that I left for dead back in June but it actually decided to grow this year.

The tomato plant (far right) that seeded itself in my compost bin is doing better than the tomato plants that I started from seed myself.


Another anomaly that is currently thriving in my compost bin under the shade of the mammoth squash is a prayer plant that I thought I killed months ago. Waaaaaay back in December in fact.

I had it inside all winter hoping that by some miracle I would be able to revive it. I finally gave up and threw the dirt into the compost bin.

Well, apparently the prayer plant decided that it did want to live after all, because now it's growing in my compost bin. Can you believe it? SIX months after the last sign of any life!!!

I guess my compost bin must have some sort of magical powers this summer, the ability to bring back the dead. Perhaps I should throw all of my ailing plants into the compost bin.

What's growing in your compost bin?

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Plant profile: Canna Lily

This is the time of year here in my backyard when the tropical garden really starts to become the focal point. Canna lilies are one of the biggest attention getters and one of my favorite tropical bulbs. I have had canna lily bulbs in my garden for several years now, but last year I started to expand my collection and added several different varieties of them. There are tons of different varieties of canna lilies.








I love the tropical feeling that canna lilies add to my garden and they are so easy to grow. They have become very popular in Minnesota over the past few years and nurseries usually carry several different varieties. They are inexpensive enough to grow as an annual in cold climates, or the bulbs can be dug up and easily overwintered.








Canna lilies are versatile and will grow just about anywhere, as long as they have enough water and full sun. They can even be grow in patio gardens or in a pond or bog. The hummingbirds love them too!








The foliage alone on some of these cannas is enough to catch anyone's attention, it's like a piece of artwork.


































The contrast of the flowers against the foliage on some varieties is striking.

















So, if you are looking for tips for successfully growing canna lilies in your garden, the list is short.

• Full sun location (6-8 hours of sun)
• Well drained soil
• Lots of water
  

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Mid-late July blooms

Here are some of my favorite blooms that I have been enjoying over the past few weeks. The tropicals and annuals have really started to pop over the last!!!

Stargazer Lily (my #1 favorite flower!!)

Canna Lily

Dahlia Rigletto

Spider Lily

Zinnia Scarlet Queen

Hibiscus Kopper King

Dahlia

Asiatic Lily Landini

Zinnia Candy Cane

Dahlia New Dimension