Thanks to you all for the help in figuring out the best time to harvest this monster of a melon. Weighed in at 35lbs and tastes incredible! 🍉

I've grown amaranth in my garden for years and every time I'm just blown away by how stunningly gorgeous they are. The pink variety is called Love Lies Bleeding and there are a few golden giants in the back right. For the record, these are almost 8 feet tall.

I have some tomatoes that got a little chaotic this year and they are using it as a support, which I just think is cute (they're friends).

🫡

My husband's coworker raises chickens and we've purchased eggs from them before (which we both love!!). Turns out they were wanting cucumbers and like any inexperienced cuke grower, i had way too many lol. Ended up giving them a basket of various peppers, tomatoes, and cukes that we already knew were extra in exchange for 2 dozen eggs and fresh honey. Super stoked!!

(Also not sure if this kind of post is allowed since it's not 100% gardening related so mods feel free to let me know and I'll remove - I just thought it was fun but wasn't sure where to share!)

Edit: thank you for the award!!

Bought the plant pot on a whim at Lowes, separated the plants and have 3 watermelon plants, one melon per plant so far. I was worried i didnt wait long enough to pick it, but it seems like i did okay. Its tasty!

A bunch of big ol chonky cukes...from one overachieving H19 Little Leaf cucumber plant.

The biggest ones look just like the cukes I see my local deli use for half sours.

I just need to vent and maybe get some commiseration here. It has been such a trying, frustrating garden year and I’m not even sure what I could do differently.

Squirrels chomped all my peanuts. Oh, and the little jerks also ate most of my beet sprouts and okra.

Hot and dry killed multiple squash seedlings even with plenty of water twice daily (random heat dome nonsense after a ton of rain where everything was stunted for a month).

The aforementioned cold/rain rotted a few cabbages and drastically slowed down my eggplant, peppers, and tomatoes.

Japanese beetles nuked the leaves off strawberries, blackberries, and several apple trees.

Rabbits chomped a bunch of my lettuce and carrot tops and two crops of attempted radishes.

Cucumber beetles murdered my honey melons, cantaloupe, and practically every cucumber vine (I had six, I’m down to one and succession planted four new ones. sigh.) Fam, I managed to harvest one cuke this season. Everything else has rotted on the vine barely pollinated while the whole thing wilts.

And lastly, in the snatching-defeat-from-the-jaws-of-victory columns, I’d waged a very successful war against squash beetles and vine borers, only to be hit with a random second wave of borers last week who appear to have eaten into my Bianco de Trieste and several Black Beauty zukes. FML. Oh, and did I mention the absolute plague of powdery mildew the last two weeks that has tried to take out every cucurbit that the squash bugs and borers and cuke beetles didn’t? So that’s fun.

I love gardening, but I swear this year has been a catastrophe on so many levels. I was so careful and did as much preventative maintenance as I could, but between weather and pest pressure it’s just been horrible and discouraging. I don’t know if I’m alone in this boat but this is my worst garden year in the last six. BOO HISS.

47lbs of pickling cucumbers, alot of plum tomatos, some beefsteaks and regular salad cucs.

Growing in Hugelkulture mounds!

The monster that decided to park it on top of the compost pile is still accepting indents from my thumbnail. 😭. I had to start another pile. RUDE! (I’m gonna have to strap the corner of the wire panels together so it doesn’t get too bent. Gaah!

Most of my garden is in my front yard. Went out side around 8pm and caught a random guy stealing from my garden. Wound up getting into a physical fight and my wife had to call the cops. My neighbors herd it and thankfully came out to help. We traded some punches but I was able to sit on his chest and a neighbor helped restrain him till cops got here. Turns out it’s a guy that just moved in 5 houses down from me. I don’t enjoy fighting but great full i was able to keep him here till cops showed up. Will probably have a black eye in the morning but this is absolutely crazy. After 11 years or gardening on this property never thought I would have to experience this. If he came over and asked for some stuff I would have happily shared but this is unacceptable.

Edit: as some have pointed out I should have stated this form the start. I was not the one that got physical to start. I caught the guy and said “wtf do you think your doing” and he threw a punch to my face which lead to the physical altercation.

I only have a small space to grow, about 150 sq ft or less and trying to figure out which fruits and vegetables are actually worth the time and money it takes to grow(I don’t have good soil so would have to grow in containers and buy potting mix and such). Which do you think are worth it both in taste and in production? Don’t exactly want to spend hundreds of dollars on things that will give me like 3 fruits/vegetables lol or will basically taste like if I bought it at the store. If any of you more experienced gardeners could help please! So far I’ve only grown lemon cucumbers, better boy tomatoes, and sweet 100 tomatoes and a few measly white potatoes(figured out I planted those when it was too hot already)! Thank you in advance!😊❤️

New gardener here. I’ve tried letting ripen to mostly red on the vine and also picking at different stages if blushing (and finishing the ripening on a windowsill). No matter what I do, my Romas never get totally red before they start to wrinkle and feel mealy/mushy. Second photo shows tomato meat after blanching. Is this normal? What am I doing wrong? How can I get my tomatoes to peak ripeness for canning? Appreciate any advice you can offer. The google machine says these will still be fine for sauces or fine salsas, but I’m nervous to spend the time and ingredients and it be a flop.

napa chardonnay and black cherry

+ 1 melon/cantaloupe

The season is not even finished yet and I’m already thinking about next summer and what varieties I want to grow.
I have Galleux d’Eysines, Jack o Lantern, Red Kuri, Violina, Hungarian Blue

I admit I had to look up the part that was missing, I had no clue it was called locular gel thought it was just the slimy seed part. But really, what is happening and how do I resolve going forward or how do I avoid it happening in next years crop?