Harvest Monday, 6/26/17

Harvested June 19th: Marrow zucchini, Butta Zucchini, Sophia summer squash, Fat Cherry tomato, and Sungold cherry tomato.

Harvested June 20th: Fiorentino zucchini, Butta Zucchini, Sophia summer squash, Chocolate Cherry tomato, and Sungold cherry tomato.

Harvested June 21st: Butta zucchini, Fiorentino zucchini, Striato D'Italia zucchini, Zephyr summer squash, and Sophia summer squash.

Also Harvested June 21st: Taxi tomato, Black Prince tomatoes, Black Cherry tomato, Fat Cherry tomato, and Sungold cherry tomato.

Good news, shockingly enough I have large tomatoes ripening in June. I've grown Black Prince before so it's actually a shock that it's this early. Taxi is a new lemon yellow tomato. Both varieties set lots and lots of fruit although Taxi is a much smaller plant. With a couple tomatoes ripened, I picked up some lettuce, French bread, and sour dough bread which will incidentally go great with bacon and tomatoes.

Harvested June 22: Taxi tomato, Black Prince tomato, Black Cherry, Fat Cherry, and Sungold cherry tomato.

Harvested Saturday, June 24th: Fiorentino zucchini, Striato D'Italia zucchini, Marrow zucchini, Zephyr summer squash, and Sophia summer squash.

It rained heavily all day Friday which kept me out of the garden till Saturday evening and I was greeted by boat-like creatures of the zucchini variety. The bowl they're sitting in is actually massive.

Also harvested Saturday: Granny Cantrell's German Red, Black Brandywine, Paul Robeson, Black Prince, and Cosmonaut Volkov tomatoes. The pink tomato is the Granny Cantrell tomato.

I was really surprised to see all these tomatoes ripening after the rain, I don't think we have ever harvested large tomatoes in June. Even Pink Brandywine is showing color so we'll get to taste them in a day or two. The biggest tomato picked so far is a Black Brandywine weighing 1.138 pounds.

And our cherry tomato harvest for June 24th.

We've eaten a pile of BLT's with the Black Brandywine and Black Prince tomatoes. And then a zucchini and tomato medley, next on the list is zucchini bread. Black Brandywine has a very savory salty flavor with hardly any seeds, Black Prince is much more juicy with a bit of a tang. Even with all the rain they're still tasty tomatoes.

Both Butta zucchini plants have split open along their main stem. It's likely that the stems were weakened by squash vine borers and then a huge storm battered the plants till they split open. But even with the severe damage, the plants are still producing and we'll see if they can recover.

There's quite a few plants infected with what I now know for sure is Tomato Speck which also infects the stems and fruit of the plants. The infected plants got a hard trim and dosed with Seranade, I was forced to apply the Serenade even though it was forecasted to rain in the next day or two. The disease had already infected 8 plants total: two Taxi's, one Black Brandywine, two Ananas Noire, two Manyel, and one Pilcer Vesy. The bacterial disease presented first on the Manyel plants, making me suspect the disease is seedborne and then has spread by aphid vectors. Next year the seeds will be treated with a diluted bleach solution before planting.

Harvested:
18.08 pounds zucchini
7.214 pounds tomato
2.632 pounds summer squash
0.974 pound cherry tomato

Total harvest: 28.9 pounds (13.109 kg)

If you're curious about weight breakdown by variety, I have that listed under the 2017 Harvest Totals tab.

Please join us for Harvest Monday hosted by Dave from Our Happy Acres, a place for gardeners and vegetable enthusiasts.

Harvest Monday, 7/13/15 - 7/19/15

I'm joining Harvest Monday at Daphne's Dandelions late because we were out picking corn yesterday at a friend's farm and today I've been spending processing corn.

Monday, July 13th. Not pictured here are maybe 40 pounds of ruined ripe tomatoes that I picked off the vines. Some were the biggest tomatoes I've ever grown (the first ones from the plants are usually the biggest for me). At least it's good to know that Paul Robeson and Costoluto Genovese are somewhat flood resistant, and yellowish one at the top is an almost ripe Big Rainbow which has a very pretty pink starburst on the bottom. And as a side note Costoluto Genovese can produce fruit in very hot drought conditions as well. I don't know where all these summer squash were hiding but the big one is destined for squash bread.

I picked about 6 pounds of tomatoes Saturday, the 18th, right before work so no pictures of them. 

Picked on Sunday, July 19th: Tomatoes, bitter melon, summer squash, and Pinkeye Purple Hull peas. When I was planting the 2 packets of Pinkeye Purple Hull pea packets I noticed that some of the peas looked off, this is from the stand of peas that barley germinated so the bed ended up getting planted with asparagus and artichokes as well.

Here are the shelled peas, some dried peas for next year's planting, and the small clear bowl holds the Not Pinkeye Purple Hull peas which are much smaller maybe they're zipper peas. The cucumbers are a bit overgrown but it's nice to see a white cucumber (I thought they hadn't germinated). The broccoli missed being photographed.

But with the first ripe tomatoes we have begun our annual bacon, lettuce, and tomato sandwich saga. Paul Robeson is such a meaty delicious tomato, even with all the water the plants took on the tomatoes are still so good. After we finished our first BLT on sourdough bread I immediately wanted another one, and my partner stated he could eat four of them.

The bush beans have been a big surprise. They keep producing a good amount of beans, and the plants are putting on another big flush of flowers. Amazing. They must really love the rain. And some of the yardlong asparagus beans have just begun to produce.

The squash plants look terrible, the stems are looking very unhealthy but they keep producing and that makes me happy. The cucumbers though are on the downward spiral into oblivion, squash bugs have taken residence on their trellis and I've started seeing cucumber beetles so it's just a matter of time.

The Waltham broccoli are still producing a good number of side shoots and a couple of the Di Cicco and one of the Summer Purple Sprouting is just starting to produce a head.

Many of the green tomatoes are starting to turn black on the bottom underneath the skin. Probably blossom end rot (BER) a sign of calcium deficiency, so I've gone ahead and picked off a lot of the bigger unripe green tomatoes showing signs of BER. The tomato and eggplants are showing signs of water stress in the form of nutrient deficiency yellowing of the leaves and spotting signs of wilt.

This week's harvest:

24.66 pounds tomato
6.80 pounds summer squash
7.10 pounds cucumber
3.84 pounds snap beans
1.93 pounds broccoli
0.37 pound bitter melon
0.15 pound peppers

Weekly total: 44.85 pounds

I wanted to mention the giant Gelber Englischer Custard summer squash was actually amazing. It was sweet and delicious and had the tiniest seed cavity with the smallest barley formed seeds, so it was a fairly young squash.