#gardeningthoughts — Public Fediverse posts

So yeah, I had a successful crop of #RainbowChard that started out as teeny tiny seedlings from a local farm. I decided to start a second crop in late August, and the plants are getting pretty big! Since the enclosed porch isn't insulated, at some point, I'll have to harvest them (I have enough indoor plants to deal with). But thanks to @keira_reckons and @MaQuest I know what to do with the stems once I harvest them -- pickle them!

Pickled Rainbow Chard

"Pickling adds pop to fresh foods, especially Swiss chard stems. In this easy fridge method, sweet meets tart and it all balances out overnight. —Taste of Home Test Kitchen, Milwaukee, Wisconsin"

Read more (includes recipe):
https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/pickled-rainbow-chard/

#SolarPunkSunday #GardeningThoughts #HarvestTime #Pickling #RefrigeratorPickles #Recipes

So yeah, I had a successful crop of #RainbowChard that started out as teeny tiny seedlings from a local farm. I decided to start a second crop in late August, and the plants are getting pretty big! Since the enclosed porch isn't insulated, at some point, I'll have to harvest them (I have enough indoor plants to deal with). But thanks to @keira_reckons and @MaQuest I know what to do with the stems once I harvest them -- pickle them!

Pickled Rainbow Chard

"Pickling adds pop to fresh foods, especially Swiss chard stems. In this easy fridge method, sweet meets tart and it all balances out overnight. —Taste of Home Test Kitchen, Milwaukee, Wisconsin"

Read more (includes recipe):
https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/pickled-rainbow-chard/

#SolarPunkSunday #GardeningThoughts #HarvestTime #Pickling #RefrigeratorPickles #Recipes

So yeah, I had a successful crop of #RainbowChard that started out as teeny tiny seedlings from a local farm. I decided to start a second crop in late August, and the plants are getting pretty big! Since the enclosed porch isn't insulated, at some point, I'll have to harvest them (I have enough indoor plants to deal with). But thanks to @keira_reckons and @MaQuest I know what to do with the stems once I harvest them -- pickle them!

Pickled Rainbow Chard

"Pickling adds pop to fresh foods, especially Swiss chard stems. In this easy fridge method, sweet meets tart and it all balances out overnight. —Taste of Home Test Kitchen, Milwaukee, Wisconsin"

Read more (includes recipe):
https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/pickled-rainbow-chard/

#SolarPunkSunday #GardeningThoughts #HarvestTime #Pickling #RefrigeratorPickles #Recipes

So yeah, I had a successful crop of #RainbowChard that started out as teeny tiny seedlings from a local farm. I decided to start a second crop in late August, and the plants are getting pretty big! Since the enclosed porch isn't insulated, at some point, I'll have to harvest them (I have enough indoor plants to deal with). But thanks to @keira_reckons and @MaQuest I know what to do with the stems once I harvest them -- pickle them!

Pickled Rainbow Chard

"Pickling adds pop to fresh foods, especially Swiss chard stems. In this easy fridge method, sweet meets tart and it all balances out overnight. —Taste of Home Test Kitchen, Milwaukee, Wisconsin"

Read more (includes recipe):
https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/pickled-rainbow-chard/

#SolarPunkSunday #GardeningThoughts #HarvestTime #Pickling #RefrigeratorPickles #Recipes

So yeah, I had a successful crop of #RainbowChard that started out as teeny tiny seedlings from a local farm. I decided to start a second crop in late August, and the plants are getting pretty big! Since the enclosed porch isn't insulated, at some point, I'll have to harvest them (I have enough indoor plants to deal with). But thanks to @keira_reckons and @MaQuest I know what to do with the stems once I harvest them -- pickle them!

Pickled Rainbow Chard

"Pickling adds pop to fresh foods, especially Swiss chard stems. In this easy fridge method, sweet meets tart and it all balances out overnight. —Taste of Home Test Kitchen, Milwaukee, Wisconsin"

Read more (includes recipe):
https://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/pickled-rainbow-chard/

#SolarPunkSunday #GardeningThoughts #HarvestTime #Pickling #RefrigeratorPickles #Recipes

Oh, and of course all the stuff that's gone wild -- #Milkweed, #Asters, #Catnip and #Oregano. Our #pollinator friends appreciated that. Saw the last young #MonarchButterfly about to fly south the other day.

#GardeningForPollinators #GardeningThoughts #SolarPunkSunday

So, I've been figuring out what worked and what didn't work with this year's garden. I've broken them down into three categories...

- What worked?
- What didn't work?
- What could have worked?

First off... What worked?

Nightshades - Red potatoes, sungold tomatoes and paprika peppers (though I had to keep on top of the hornworms on all 3 species).

Rainbow chard and beets (though the beets suffered in the heat). I let a few plants of both species go to seed, so now I have fresh seed.

Lettuce and onions (grown together in containers). Though some critters were getting into the onions. Luckily, I had plenty to start with. I harvested some lettuce seeds, but also have plenty on hand. None of the onions went to seed, and I'm going to think about planting more in the vegetable garden so I can forget about them and let them go to seed.

Black beans worked out well, but not as many as I would have liked. Plenty of seeds for next year, though.

Chinese cabbage seems to be doing well. As are most of my potted herbs.

And surprisingly, butternut squash seems to be doing well (as did the cucumbers). I may focus on them next year, and get some netting for them to climb (one squash plant took over a nearby forsythia bush, and is producing a big ol' squash).

Cosmos flowers! I finally have them reseeding themselves in a garden around our capped dug well. Zinnias and marigolds are *almost* at that point -- but I started some indoors to make sure.

What didn't work? Peanuts, soy beans, lavender (I can never get it to bloom), celery root (though I still have a couple of plants that survived), poppies (planting them in the fall this year). Transplanted wild strawberries didn't take as well as I wanted, but I can cultivate more of them, since they are still in quite a few spots (maybe I'll work around them, rather than move them).

What could have worked? Corn, sunflowers, septic field flowers -- all *victims* of a young deer that was born in my neighbor's woods. I may have to put up some fencing (something I hate doing).

As for for other things I've been growing, my grandmother's rose bush was *not* crazy about the heat, and some of the peonies are getting crowded out by irises, so those will need attention. Mock orange bloomed quite well, and one of our walnut trees will hopefully produce walnuts next year. I've been watering from the rainbarrels as much as possible, and have used Bt to keep the mosquitoes at bay. But we had plenty of goldenrod, milk thistle, asters, dandelions and other flowers to keep our pollinator friends happy (they made a HUGE comeback this year).

#SolarPunkSunday #GardeningThoughts #ClimateChangeGardening #Gardening #GardeningForPollinators