July 4, 2016

Harvest Monday, 7/4/16

Summer squash, zucchini, and cucumbers have started producing this week. I've been hand pollinating since bees have yet to discover the squashes, but the zucchini is harder to get to and pollinate.
The first tomato is a Sun Gold Cherry. We're also growing Fat Cherry and Black Cherry, all new varieties for us.
More summer squash were gathered on Saturday. The plants have all been attacked by squash vine borers, so I'm trying to pick the squashes young and maybe they'll recover.
 And another single Sun gold tomato. My husband's being generous and letting me eat them.
Summer squash, zucchini, and green beans all from the garden stir fried with pork and onions on Sunday. The sauce was so simply and yet so good just fish sauce, a little sugar, and fresh ground pepper. With stir fries I do everything to taste, sometimes vegetables are a bit astringent so need a little sugar to take the edge off.

I also do a beef stir fry with sweet peppers and onions. The sauce is just soy sauce, Lea and Perrins worcestershire, hot pepper flakes, and a little sugar.

The garden is slowly coming into production which is really nice. Plus we got lots of rain Saturday and Sunday. Yayyy, I don't have to water after work on the 4th of July.

Please come join us at Harvest Monday where vegetable gardeners get together and share all their trials and triumphs.

14 comments:

David Velten said...

Congratulations on the first tomato. Sun Gold was always the first in my garden when I grew them. Too bad about the SVB. Only way to avoid them is cover the plants until they start to flower, but it has been so hot there. I'm going uncovered this year and taking my chances.

Dave @ HappyAcres said...

Sun Gold was first here too. Looks like you are doing a good job pollinating with all those squash! Thankfully we have lots of bees here, including bumble bees which seem to love the squash blooms. I like stir fries too because they are a good way to use up whatever the garden is giving me at the moment.

Margaret said...

Happy 4th of July, Phuong and congrats on the 1st tomato! Oh, that's too bad about the borers. I ended up covering my squash with netting, but haven't done a great job overall - netting bales is a bit tricky. And that stir-fry looks amazing!

Eight Gate Farm NH said...

The squashes look great! And your stir-fries sound delicious.

Phuong said...

Hi David,
That's an interesting idea about covering the squashes, vine borers usually only come around in early spring around here. So keeping them covered before flowering would be ideal.

Your kohlrabi are doing great! Our fall planted ones ended up dying during the winter so I still haven't ever tried any.

Julie said...

Congrats on your first tomato! I'm still waiting for them here. I despise the vine borers. I had one zucchini and one butternut vine wilt. I ripped them apart trying to find the borers and found nothing, so I'm not sure who to blame, but I'm sure the vine borers will be coming soon. I try to plant squash every three weeks to replace the plants that are killed.

Phuong said...

Hi Dave,
It'll be a long time before the great tomato deluge comes to visit us, maybe August. It looks like things are taking off in your garden. And with all this rain everything is quickly swelling.

Phuong said...

Hi Margaret,
I don't see any of the vine borer moths flying around since we put up the fence. Wouldn't it be great if that was able to keep them out? Of course the cabbage moths are everywhere and I find caterpillars on the strangest things like beans and pepper plants. That's interesting that you net your plants, I'll probably start covering the squash plants next year.

Phuong said...

Hi Eight Gate,
Your garden is producing lots of food and it's amazing how well your lettuce and snow peas are still doing. I wish we could grow peas here, but they would need to go in extra early and our springs our usually too wet for that.

Phuong said...

Hi Julie,
I hate vine borers so much, some years we don't get a single squash because they hit the plants so early. You're getting so many wonderful things from your garden. Our soil is too heavy to grow carrots, they never get much bigger than 2-3 inches.

Shaheen said...

Love the yellow in your garden, from squashes to tomatoes to the final dish.

gardenvariety-hoosier said...

Hope the bees find your squash. Do you get the native bumblebees or the European honeybee? The squash flowers really provide a feast for them. As for the borer, have you ever tried spraying Bt around the stem every few days. I've had some success with that.

Phuong said...

Hi Shaheen,
It's nice to be harvesting some things from the garden after a few months of planting and waiting.

You've been doing so much work in your garden, it looks really good. I prefer a more wild garden but it's too hot and humid here, the plants need really good airflow to keep mildew at bay.

Phuong said...

Hi Mike,
I saw the first bumblebee today but they're not that common, the honeybees are much more ubiquitous. I actually purchased some Bt for cabbage worms, so I'll try spraying the squash stems too. Your mystery squash plant is so big, and it looks like you'll be getting lots of tomatoes soon.