Cabbage

Here is an example of too much rain, and me not picking in time. I lost two of my four cabbages. With all the water we have had in August and I trying to get bigger cabbage by letting the cabbage grow too much, they split right open and the bugs started working on them. I am so disappointed. I also lost my beans to too much rain. My beans were standing in water a little too much, they became water logged, turned yellow and now dead. I will be adding them to my compost bin latter this week.

I'm making a note of the problems so I can work to correct them for next year. I think we are going to keep the area we have for the beans and corn, I am just going to add more dirt and peat and compost to lift it up and aid in drainage.

I also want to build another raised bed to the front of the garden so I can add more items to the garden. I've hinted to Bill that I want to expand the garden - not sure if he it totally grasping my vision yet. I'm sure once I lay it out, he will see what I'm trying to do. I keep joking that eventually I want to take over the entire back yard - haha!

I found this year my peppers should not be in the same raised bed as the tomatoes. They have completely been over grown by the tomatoes - they are struggling to produce (I did pick a couple of peppers yesterday), but I think if they have had more room they would do better. I would also like to grow some beets and onions.

I canned 5 more quarts of tomatoes yesterday, and now my tomato bushes are all stripped of red tomatoes - there are still a ton of green tomatoes, but it will be a week before I have more to can. So, I'm off today to the farmer's market to see if I can find a bushel of tomatoes and ingredients to make stewed tomatoes for canning. I love stewed tomatoes (they always take me back to my Catholic school days where we had mac and cheese with stewed tomatoes every Friday - they did sneak in fish sticks once in a while...lol), but I also like to add stewed tomatoes to my chili and soups.