speaking of gardening, ben yancer

mine is completely out of control. notes to self:

1. next year, plant the tomatoes next to a fence or wall so that they can lean onto it and not completely overshadow the peppers. my attempt at staking did not turn out well.

2. cucumbers must be on a trellis. not only do they stay out of the way, they also produce more and better fruit than those trailing on the ground. the ones on the ground also tend to get a strange disease on them (gummosis, says my book) and dry rot. (and remember in The Book, ben, you can make an inclined trellis for your cucumbers and plant shade-loving vegetables underneath it.)

3. winter squash (buttercup, in my case) must have its own bed far away from all others with miles to roam. because it was fenced in the beginning (we finally took it down) it wended its way through and around ALL of the other vegetables, even those at the far opposite end from it.

4. plant less squash.

5. plant more beets.

those are my thoughts for next year's garden. for now i keep busy picking and pickling cucumbers, and keeping the yellow squash picked and eaten. we also have a few ripening tomatoes. the peas are about ready, but there aren't enough to pick a lot all at once to cook with so i just eat them right off of the vine.

and speaking of pickling, here is a list of my accomplishments so far:

7 pints of bread-and-butter pickles
3 pints of yellow cucumber relish
7 quarts and 1 pint of yellow cucumber pickles
7 pints and 1 quart of dill pickles

i haven't tried any yet so i don't have any idea how they taste or even if i did things correctly, but i guess time will tell. i hope i have enough tomatoes to can. i'd love to make some salsa and stewed tomatoes, and maybe ketchup. for that reason, next year i am going to plant an insane amount of tomato plants so i will have plenty of excess to work with.

how is yours coming, ben? or anyone else, for that matter.