I, for one, welcome our squirrel overlords.



Did you ferment it too, or just canning it?

This post was edited by BannyMcBannerson on Aug 12 2020 11:20pm

Just straight canning. Next up for tomato use is guacamole. We're gonna need more chips.

We also do a MESS of salsa every year, nothing else to do with a bushel of peppers, bushel of tomatoes, and bushel of onions lol. best use we get out of it is 2-3 chicken breasts in a crock pot, half a jar of salsa, and 8 hours later you can shred up easy as hell taco meat. the salsa keeps it really moist. we'll do that meal about 30 weeks out of the year lol.

just finished up my onion harvest/curing last night. and dug up all the garlic. apparently the chipmunks really like garlic, must have stolen half my harvest before i could even dig it. and ive killed 20 chips this year....

but got a big bushel of yellow onions in the pantry now. should last til spring.

I had planned on canning whole tomatoes for soups in winter, and then making the rest into tomato sauce, paste, and puree to can, but the squirrels had other ideas.

Got some squirrel repellant that I sprinkle on my yard every month. Seems to be working, I have a few ripe tomatoes and no evidence of squirrel infestation even though I see them running around the woods.

I put a tarp over my compost pit since it's not getting 100+ anymore. Took it off to turn it today and there were thousands or tens of thousands of maggots in there. Google says they're things like soldier fly larvae and aren't necessarily bad, but I'm gonna find some more dry brown stuff to put in the pit since it can be a sign there's too much green. I don't have a lot of access to dark brown, but with leaves starting to come down it'll shift the balance just by mowing my yard.

With final harvest coming in here are my totals more or less:

3 bushels roma tomatoes, half to tomato sauce, half to salsa
-was a bit lax on the thinning process, but the chicken compost did wonders and didnt need to weed at all hardly.

2 bushels white onions, half to sauce, half to salsa, 1 bushel left for the pantry to use over winter. (replanted to i have more in spring)
-beds got a bit weedy but overall easiest crop there is and a great yield. adding sand to the raised bed was a game changer for size. went from pingpong ball sized to baseball sized.

20 lbs fingerling potatoes, dry scrubbed and stored in the pantry to eat over the next few months
-4 10 gal pots, easiest thing to plant, just requires a lot of watering. great yield, next year ill do some sweet potatoes as well.

1 bushel bell peppers, used for salsa and a bit for tomato sauce, ate a lot during the season. still VERY underwhelming yield. planted my plants too close.
-spacing way more next year and going to top them earlier and thin the plants, not enough energy going into fruit here

2 bushels jalapeno, some to salsa, some made poppers, gave an ass load away.
-no changes needed i'd say, happy with the yield, even on closely planted plants (1.5sqft planting or so)

5 lbs garlic, sauce and pantry for that
-didnt plant enough or have enough room for them, chipmunks got a few, but overall very happy and the bulb size in sandy soil was really impressive, ping pong ball sized up to almost baseball for a few. next year will plant more for sure as it stores very well.

4 bushels snap peas
-getting ahead of the season and planting these 2 weeks earlier post-frost than last year was a bit game changer, wife are them all as i dont care for them much. will plant on a larger trellis next year and double the amount so we can freeze some or make stir fry veggie bags.

10 bushels blue lake pole beans, yes 10. fucking 10.
-went a bit ham on planting these, but glad we did. wife ate her heart out on them, i made 6 pint jars of dill pickled beans, froze 25 quart bags, and we made about 30 servings of baby food of them. and still had some left over that the chickens got. unreal yield and i spent 2$ on the seeds. 2 fucking dollars.

about 50 mixed sized carrots.
-i took 2 gallon cat litter plastic jugs, cut the tops off, and mixed in pure chicken compost. planted and thinned them. worked incredibly well. some pencil thin, some almost 2" diameter and 10" long. but my best year on carrots. wanted more for baby food, but didnt plant enough. next year im going to up it a lot and water WAY more.

hundreds of cherry tomatoes
-i planted 1 plant, 1 damn plant. covered in chicken compost. and it grew into a 5 foot diameter tree i had to use 4 tomato cages to hold up. i dont eat them nor the wife. tried some sauce, too sweet and seedy. so gave some away and the chickens got the rest.

kale, cilantro, oregano
-only a few plants of each but got an insane amount of these with minimal watering and composting.

uncountable pounds of lettuce
-i plant one 4'x6' bed of lettuce and cut leaves to regrow. we got maybe 20 lbs, chickens for maybe 40. insane yield this year. replanting in a cold frame to try and grow all winter.

zero pumpkins
-damn chipmunks

5 bushel slicing cucumbers & lemon cucumbers
-easiest crop to grow, spent 2$ on seeds. made a lot of pickels, wife ate the rest sliced.

50 lbs red raspberries, 20 lbs black raspberries
-ate a lot fresh, did 20 small jam containers

few lbs strawberries
-planted a 4'x6' bed, its not full, next year should get a LOT of them.

20 lbs rhubarb
-some for jam, gave rest away

pear tree blossomed/fruited first time ever, but fruit are small. i need to water/spray a lot more.

Is it ok to put dog poop at base of orange tree (buried under leaves and a little dirt)?

I’ve heard conflicting things

Built first serious vegetable garden since i was a kid. Its only 8' x 12' but dug down 12" and replaced the clay with 4 tons of purchased pine chip soil. Grew lots of tomatoes, peppers, broccoli, squash, onion over summer, now growing 6 kale plants. Also made a berry patch along fence in a 3ft wide plot. Raspberries, blueberries (which i think will not make it through winter), strawberries and a gigantic blackberry plant from last year. Excited to expand this garden for spring! My wife went crazy on flower beds and buying way too much gardening crap. like $600 easy.

Thinking about doing a big gardening project next year as a proof of concept for a small business I can use to fund my computational adventures.

if u live in a high traffic area a produce stand is always an option. otherwise a local farmers market can net a surprising about of cash