here the neighbors grow so much of there own stuff, excess usually goes to the neighborhood goats. they're loving the watermelon rinds atm

Last year I did zucchini (just 2 plants) and blanched/vac-pac'ed/froze chunks, assuming I'd use it in soups. Have done it a few times, but yeah there's probably still like 6-8lbs in the freezer even now. Does seem to keep pretty well that way since the air is occluded, but was tough to seal b/c it's so watery.

Can't blame her. Unless you're ready to eat it almost every day for a couple months, I feel like this probably happens to most of us.

ah, the 2023 threw me. stared at that for a min and ultimately just googled 'malema stabbed'. still took another min before I guessed "suppose he means big bad malema talks a strong 'kill the boer' game , but ultimately he cap" lol

First mater sammiches of the season. Tbh I try not to do a lot of these but I do go for it w/ the first. Used my two ripest, a Brandywine and a Krim that got a little beat up pulling it out of the crook b/t the truss and the stem.

Biggest corn harvest of the year, something like 40 ears on top of maybe 20 so far, and 10-20 still finishing. No question I need to blanch/freeze some.

Onions sizing up well. Not a perfect crop, but definitely an improvement on the blanks and plants that didn't bulb vs. last season.

The "gotta have it" sweetcorn is entering peak ripeness.

With the weird more-than-week maturity distribution, that peak should be very spread out and I can almost keep up w/ what hits it by just eating a ton of corn every night until near-mid August. Idk, we'll see how that goes.

I may hold a portion back and vacuum/pack it. We definitely won't have anywhere near as much as w/ the six-shooter from last year (which I still have probably 5-6 _gallons_ of in the chest freezer). Awesome stuff tho - if it's not too much of a p.i.t.a. to store, I could get into the variety in future.

oh oh, "setting up a" .... still, great starting point. Let us know how it moves forward

It comes w/ that gigantic greenhouse!? Awesome man

DAAAAAMN *envy intensifies*

I think for corn this is the earliest year I've had, but I took a bit of a risk putting it in the ground when I did and just got lucky. Think I'd normally be in line w/ you.

+ Graf tells me we apparently won't need to be offline, so ignore that I guess.

sorry - Idk if I shared w/ you already but Hoss tool had a video on how they do a fert schedule that I've found pretty useful. Most crucial thing I'd say is that unless you have insanely fertile soil, expect to use some npk, like a 12-12-12 or something, and at a fairly high intensity.

[Since we'll be offline, doing a couple off-normal-hours poasts to cover the gap]

Finally found a fruit on the little compact-foliage sugarbaby watermelons. Never grown a variety w/ such a dark-green rind, but it looks healthy.

Not quite keeping up w/ comparatively light Micklee that found its way over the edge of the bed and had to have some stakes put in place to keep it from tearing off the vine as it swells.

[Since we'll be offline, doing a couple off-normal-hours poasts to cover the gap]

Have taken maybe half a dozen test ears. The couple that were really filled-out genuinely were some of the sweetest corn I've ever had w/o some kind of unnatural syrupy quality. They were however about as inconsistently finished as the stalks were to put out tassles - as you can see here, a fair number still had some filling out to do despite the completely browned-off silks.

Pulling weeds by hand and met this little guy - the Io moth's caterpillar. Those bristles sting. In the vicinity, although not as bad as a beesting. Then again I had some numbing spray. Tried to just throw it out into the field b/c whatever it was eating inevitably got pulled up, but idk if it could find something else in the grasses.