Group the Maine growing season is at an end but that doesn't mean this forum is ending.

I'm in hopes that those of you in warmer weather areas will begin to post. I will be researching things on line and posting from time to time, for the group. I hope to find info this winter that will help us all.

I think Sylvia still has some growing season left and she may be posting still.

I want to tell you that I did get 5 pumpkins from my container planting. I hope to get pics up soon. I've already cooked one up. Which of course was the bestest of them all. Truly!!!!

I will tell you all that I got so many cucumbers from this summer, so many, that I gave some away ,ate tons, and also had to throw some away but only after they started to .... rot.

I did drag my containers off the deck and can see them from this very room. Scary is the weather has been OK and I bet I will still be able to pick a few more cukes before the freeze sets in. Sitting here I look out and see flowers. Looking forward to next years crop and also in hopes of more poster....

Well that's it for now.

Hugs,

Doris

Hi Doris. Great to hear how your growing is going - going being the operative word I guess now the big freeze is rushing towards you.

It sounds as if you had a lot more cukes and things than I did. I have had quite a few, but some of them were quite yellow, and I think that may have been due to lack of calcium, which also caused a bit of blossom end rot on the tomatos.

Most of my tomatos are ok though. I have eaten quite a few tiny tims and they are beautiful. Not acid at all. Probably because they're all left to ripen on the plant and I just pick them when I want to eat them. The Grosse Lisse tomatos are ripening nicely. Some of them should be the perfect picking colour within the next 2-3 days. I gave the plants a feed of trace elements with a good dose of calcium and haven't had any more showing signs of the rot, but the leaves haven't really recovered their nice deep green colour yet. I'm not too concerned so long as the tomatos are good lol.

I've had several beans from the guinea bean plants. Some of them were too hard to use because I left them on the plants too long, but the ones that were picked at the right time were lovely. The others I opened and harvested the seeds from for next year. A couple of the veges grew to nearly two feet long! They're quite an amazing vegetable. I'll see if I can get a photo of the last one on the plant showing its length, also some pics of the ripening tomatos.

I bought a PH soil testing kit so I can monitor the acidity of the soil next time. Apparently potting soil can be rather acid and some veges need it to be a more neutral PH.

At the moment I've got herbs growing still and they'll keep going all year. There is mint, parsley, dill, sweet basil and vietnamese basil. I have just got a new lot of kangkong watercress cuttings put in as the caterpillars came and raided my crop last week. Overnight they stripped nearly all the leaves off the plants. I've also got nasturtium plants growing and yam cuttings in pots. A friend gave me all the cuttings and came and helped to plant them. He's an amazing elderly Italian man and knows so much about growing stuff, and also about bush tucker, safe plants to eat and what its medicinal value is. He's truly remarkable. I've never grown anything like yams (sweet potatos) before, so I'm really keen to see how they come along.

I'm trying to figure out what will grow well during the heat of our summer now. I've really got the growing bug now and don't want to waste any time lol. Probably some of the more tropical type veges will be good to start off soon.

I hope some more members will post as well. It's great to hear what everyone is doing. I'm having such a ball with all this growing and messing around with dirt I must be getting quite boring!

Hope to be back in a day or so with the photos.

Hugs and happy gardening,
Sylvia

Sylvia,

I need to thank you from the bottom of my heart. Your contributions and great writting style has made this group one of the best in my opinion. I did get lots of cucumbers ans pumpkins actually. But not much of anything else that could be eaten. My beans were good but ate then raw. 2 plants weren't enough to supply us with enough at one time for a meal. So next year , if I decide to grow them again, I will plant more.

I will go back to rocks for the drainage. Not that the pine cones weren't a good tip but I think my crops did better with rock. I'm thinking I didn't prepare the pine cones the way I should have. I ended up woith weeds in my soil. My fault ..

I don't have a lot of time to post more tonight but hope to post more and always looking forward to ready your post Sylvia...

Not boring at all....

I do see that members are reading what we post. I just wsh they would post something. Maybe sooner or later someone will step up. But if not that's ok. I'll share until I have nothing more to share..

Hugs,

Doris