Welcome to European Tribune. It's gone a bit quiet around here these days, but it's still going.
Display:
Nice looking garden Paul. My grandmothers had huge ones that I used to help with, and thus I have managed to grow a few things on my own some years (tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, melons and peppers).  Like you I use a little fertilizer to get things going, but no insecticides.  My grandmother always had problems with tomato worms that we had to remove by hand. I take it you don't have that problem in Washington. My grandmothers also "canned" or deep froze everything
for later consumption. I can recommend pear preserves as an equal to your figs in flavor. One grandmother had a large fig tree and made delicious preserves from it, and bought or was given pears (usually picked from a friend's tree) to put up. In my memory there is nothing to compare with a hot biscuit and pear preserves for breakfast, unless it is buttered sweet potato biscuits, made with a combination of flour and cooked sweet potato. I think I'm getting hungry!

Are you able to produce enough for your entire vegetable supply?

I can swear there ain't no heaven but I pray there ain't no hell. _ Blood Sweat & Tears

by Gringo (stargazing camel at aoldotcom) on Tue Sep 2nd, 2008 at 02:47:57 PM EST
with an old Gravely walk-behind - in Texas. Of course, there was no Summer garden there.

Haven't seen a Tomato Worm in many a year. Out here we have Blossom End-rot, but the Romas seem to resist that very well.

Pear preserves sound good to me.

Tomatoes, beans, and fruit for the whole year (frozen), but we buy bananas, of course. (I'm planting Kiwi vines this Winter.) Lettuce generally grows for about 8 months. We get potatoes for about 4 months, and we store them - plus winter squash - for about 3 months additional. Everything else, we can generally count on 3 - 6 months, depending on species and dependent on our strategy of using small amounts in combinations, rather than one, big quantity of a particular item.

paul spencer

by paul spencer (paulgspencer@gmail.com) on Tue Sep 2nd, 2008 at 07:06:45 PM EST
[ Parent ]
It seems like walnut avoidance is more that hearsay...

Walnut - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As garden trees they have some drawbacks, in particular the falling nuts, and the releasing of the allelopathic compound juglone, though a number of gardeners do grow them.[3] [4] However, different walnut species vary in the amount of juglone they release from the roots and fallen leaves - the black walnut in particular is known for its toxicity. [5] Juglone is toxic to plants such as tomato, apple, and birch and may cause stunting and death of nearby vegetation. Juglone appears to be one of the walnut's primary defence mechanisms against potential competitors for resources (water, nutrients and sunlight), and its effects are felt most strongly inside the tree's "drip line" (the circle around the tree marked by the horizontal distance of its outermost branches). However, even plants at a seemingly great distance outside the drip line can be affected, and juglone can linger in the soil for several years even after a walnut is removed as its roots slowly decompose and release juglone into the soil.


Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères
by linca (antonin POINT lucas AROBASE gmail.com) on Tue Sep 2nd, 2008 at 07:40:39 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Yeah, I think walnuts do better in dedicated orchards or alone. But are they delicious, especially black walnuts in ice cream. A family favorite for generations.

I can swear there ain't no heaven but I pray there ain't no hell. _ Blood Sweat & Tears
by Gringo (stargazing camel at aoldotcom) on Tue Sep 2nd, 2008 at 11:27:37 PM EST
[ Parent ]
I come from Grenoble, where the "Noix de Grenoble" production was granted AOC protection in 1938...

Un roi sans divertissement est un homme plein de misères
by linca (antonin POINT lucas AROBASE gmail.com) on Wed Sep 3rd, 2008 at 04:06:02 AM EST
[ Parent ]

Display:

Occasional Series