Nature's Bounty 2011

[your_comforting_company]

Starting to harvest the fruits of my labors (and fruits that I had no labor involved in). Just thought I'd share some of the goodies. The entire album is here.

Today's tater dig and taters from this past week of harvesting
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Today's okra pickin's. I roofed a fella's house who is going to teach me how to "flash boil" it in the jar for pickling so they stay crisp and juicy. I can't wait till I get enough to put up some of the delicious treats!
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Progress on the peas.. seems like there were no blooms only two days ago, and now every plant has flowers! yay!!
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Cucumbers
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Squash
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Yep.. That's my beehive in the background.
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Blueberries
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Figs.. I couldn't resist eating a few. They are so sweet and delicious. Grandma is going to show me how to make fig preserves using her old recipe in the next few days.
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Transplanted some bird's eye peppers and they appear to be surviving the trauma. These little jewels are good and hot and make some of my favorite peppersauce!
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The peppers are planted among several gardenia bushes. I love the sweet fragrance of the flowers, and they house lots of little ladybug larvae (or whatever stage this is), which will help with pests like aphids and thrips.
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What's this? Eastern Black Nightshade. Why do I keep it around? So I can show people to keep their kids safe from it. The flowers look to be exactly the same size and color as the flowers on my birds-eye peppers. If not for the difference in leaf shape, they could pass as twins. The green berries of nightshade can kill you and strongly resemble the small fruits of the birds-eye peppers. Please pay attention when you are foraging ANY Solanacea plant.
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One of the Stevia plants that I ordered from Gardener's Choice. Gave the other one to my mother.
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A leaf this big has the sweet taste equivalent (IMO) to a teaspoon of sugar.
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An olive tree that I still need to set out. Nice and thorny for primitive endeavors, and will have fruits that I can get cooking oil from, or brine the way grrlscout did (which is something I'm eager to try too!). It was given to me by the same gentleman who is going to teach me to pickle okra.
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Peaches that we thought were all but gone since the birds love them so much
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We saved a pit last year and it sprouted. This is the resulting sapling. I'm so proud of it!
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Garlic is in bloom, so if anyone would like some seeds just let me know. I have two heads that will be seed in a few more days, and my friend up the road also has two heads he said I could get. Extremely pretty in bloom and delicious in deer-spaghetti!
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Maters making some progress. Hoping the thrips don't find 'em and give them the wilt virus.
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I thought that I would express the resemblance of ALL solonacea plants. Tomato, potato, pepper, and eastern black nightshade, all have these type flowers with the swollen anthers and backward curving flower petals. Size and color vary by plant.. Just be careful what you pick!!
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One of my Yucca filamentosa is putting on a flower stalk this year. I hope to make use of much of this plant, adding the fruits and flowers to salads, using the stalk for friction fire materials, and the leaves as cordage material. Don't forget that the root and leaf scrapings make excellent soap (which can also be used as a pesticide for aphids!)
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It's been forming blooms for about 3 weeks now. It's a very slow bloomer
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We had thought that the recent storms had blown away all the plum blooms. Much to my surprise I found these babies today!!
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Every year we have to prop up the limbs on this pear tree. It's only about 15' high and 15' wide, but it bears so much fruit every year that it will literally break itself. We take what doesn't get eaten to our hunting land for wildlife, and donate the over-ripe fruits that fall on the ground to a hog farming in-law. Hoping to learn to make pear butter this year and I can't wait for some more of the wife's pear tarts!
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Our fig haul for the day. Jay birds keep getting most of them before I get home at night. If anyone knows a better remedy for this than a piece of tin-foil in the tree, please let me know!
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Lots of good stuff to eat and most of it required no labor on my part, with the exception of what's in the garden. Hope you enjoyed!

[Alaskan Survivalist]

Just getting started here but you guys posting pictures of your gardens is very inspiring. Thanks!

[mosquitomountainman]

We're still planting ours. Good harvest! Thanks for sharing.

[gryffynklm]

Douglas Nightshade Interesting. I didn't realize there were white blossemed nightshades. I've always seen the purple with the yellow.

http://www.ecnca.org/plants/Solanum_douglasii.htm

[rwc1969]

Looks like you have quite the variety, those figs look good.

[Pocomoonskyeyes3]

YCC you can also use some of your peppers and pears for pear relish. You'll need a grinder for the pears but it is soooooo good. I wish my Mom had given me her recipe. I LOVE that stuff, and you can't buy it anywhere. My garden is still growing. We planted more watermelons than we can eat I'm sure.(But the boys wanted watermelons LOL) But perhaps we can make watermelon preserves from some of the rinds.

[your_comforting_company]

Will my meat grinder work for grinding the pears? I will do some searching for recipes. I got the recipe yesterday for the pickled okra, so I'll be putting some of that up in a few days.

Gryff, I'm almost certain that this is Solanum ptycanthum as opposed to S. douglasii. Many of the solanacea plants in my area that have purple blooms are horse-nettles. One thing that I'm curious about is whether it is as toxic to bugs as it is to humans. There are a few small plants in the garden that I figured I'd leave there as natural pesticides, but I also worry about cross-contamination from the nightshade to my peas or okra.

RWC, I'd have had twice as many figs harvested, but for every one I put in the pot, I ate one LOL. They are so sweet and juicy I just can't help myself!

[Winnie]

Wow! Looks great. I'm just planting the tender stuff out. My Fig tree has a few baby figs on it(had to give it a hard prune last year). There really is nothing better than home grown/ foraged food!

[Pocomoonskyeyes3]

YCC - Yes your Meat grinder will work. If I recall that was what my mom used, she just left it a little loose (But not TOO loose) so the pears would be more coarse.

If you are looking for a plant to use as a bug control plant, look for "Fly Poison" Pioneers mixed it with sugar to kill flies. It DOES grow in your area. If I recall correctly it is listed as "Fly Poison" in the Audobon guide and has a white flower similar to Garlic, but not umbrella shaped like garlic. It's more "Spiky" shaped. I remember seeing it quite often in roadside ditches, Crash probably also has access to this plant as well.

Oh yeah, I meant to ask. Is that type of Yucca the type that is called "Bear Grass"?

[your_comforting_company]

It is "bear grass", Yucca filamentosa. There are several varieties in that picture, one of which is the "mound lily". The stalks are shorter, but the parts all work the same.

I will be seeking this "fly poison" plant in my area. Thanks!

And my meat grinder came with 3 plates, one fine, medium, and "Big chunks"... I'll probably go with the medium lol.

[Pocomoonskyeyes3]

Things may have changed since I lived in Ga. over a decade ago, But when I was a Guide at OSP in Waycross, Beargrass was a protected species of yucca native to the state.

Also found some pics on the net of Fly Poison.....Fly Poison (Amianthium muscitoxicum)



http://cal.vet.upenn.edu/projects/po...s2/ami1big.jpg

http://forestry.tennessee.edu/flypoison2.jpg

[your_comforting_company]

So... the wife talked me into going to "big town" yesterday to get canning supplies instead of spending a small fortune on them here in town. We needed some other stuff too. I'll get pics of making the pickled okra today, still not quite enough figs for a "cooking" as maw calls it.
Anyhow, I picked up the Ball Blue Book canning guide for $6 while we were there and it has lots and lots of recipes: http://www.amazon.com/Ball-Blue-Book.../dp/0972753702

I'll provide a link to the "preserving" forum thread this evening after the day is done and some cans are put up. I'd say wish me luck, but I don't need luck.. I've got some folks from the Baby Boomer generation who are going to teach me firsthand (but I got the book as a back-up plan). Thank goodness there are still some of them around to teach us young'uns how to do things.

[your_comforting_company]

Yucca filamentosa is no longer a protected species.

http://georgiawildlife.dnr.state.ga....ctedplants.asp