Harvest Monday, 8/3/20

There's a weird space time anomaly surrounding this year. It just seems never ending. I hope everyone is staying safe and taking care of yourselves mentally and physically. Now is the time to be extra kind to ourselves and to our loved ones.

Kale, free range greens, cucumbers, zucchini, fat green onion, and those slender greens stalks on the right are garlic chives, and a giant summer squash.

Tomatoes and summer squash.

We eat a lot of ramen soups or curry noodle soups with tomatoes, greens, squash, onions, and chives from the garden. We also make sandwiches with tomatoes, cucumbers, and sprouts.

We've gotten a tremendous amount of rain the last couple of weeks and the plants our suffering because of it. The only things doing well are greens and peppers. The greens especially, look vibrant and have had a surge of growth that I find astonishing. It's time to clear out the great majority of the beds, except the sweet potatoes, greens, and peppers will get to hang out awhile longer.

We are having a cooler and wetter than usual August, so it's probably the perfect time to get some lettuce, greens, winter radishes, kohlrabi, and a second planting of snap beans in the ground. I'll be putting off planting turnips and spinach because they're so sensitive to temperature spikes. And I've actually ordered onion and shallot sets for fall planting, which should arrive the 3rd week of September. I'm so excited to try this new experiment in fall planting.

Please join us for Harvest Monday as hosted by Dave from Happy Acres.

Fruiting Vegetables in the Garden

A little tour of the different vegetables that are setting fruit in the garden. It's strange to think how July is only a couple weeks away. By the end of August I'm usually digging up beds and planting the fall garden.

Riesenstraube cherry tomato is a mass of blooms. It's just starting to set fruit, so is later than all the other cherries and it's a shorter plants as well.

Sweet Aperitif has set lots and lots of fruit and is a fairly tall plant having reached the top of its cage already. My packet of seed only contained 10 seeds so I'll definitely be saving seed from this variety.

Black Vernissage with its pretty striations. It has some bad reviews on Baker Creek, but texture and flavor has so much to do with climate and soil I decided to grow it out. The plants are massive and incredibly vigorous. They're a larger sized cherry, bigger than Big Cherry and Black Cherry which I've grown previous years.

Indigo Blueberry cherry, so cute with their dark shoulders. Another healthy vigorous plant that is well behaved structurally, meaning I don't have to constantly push side shoots back into the cage.

Ground cherry fruit with their adorable outer covering. Aunt Molly's and the unnamed variety have both set fruit. Ambrosia has yet to even bloom.

Pink Berkley Tie Dye is another striped tomato variety. They're pretty early for a beefsteak sized tomato. Most years they're a shorter variety that stop producing before the end of the season.

This is labeled Big Zebra but looks more like a paste variety. It's totally possible I mislabeled it. But I'm only growing Anna Russian and Orange Icicle long tomato types, neither of which I've grown before. And I think they're foliage are supposed to be much more wispy or droopy.

It makes me wonder if there are any other mislabeled plants in the garden.

Black Brandywine is a smaller plant for me this year. Maybe it's the extra hot summer we've been having.

In contrast Dark Brandywine is doing better this year. But I remember Black Brandy as having a more memorable flavor.

Jaune Flamme is setting nice long trusses of fruit. I'm very excited to try this variety.

Pink Brandywine sometimes gets yellowing leaves as a sign of magnesium deficiency in my garden. This plant is more affected than the other two of the same variety and is blooming later than the others.

Pink Brandywine is my favorite tomato, so juicy and delicious.

The fruit of the Brandywine. I just find them so adorable with their crumpled edges.

Granny Cantrell's German Red is actually a pink tomato with clear skin. Their young fruit are so pale they almost appear white.

There's something wrong with the Green Zebra plants. The side that get's full sun is dying which I've been trimming off. I've finally decided wilt is making its way through the garden. Cosmonaut Volkov is showing signs of wilt as well. The disease can be caused by either fungus or bacteria, but I'm guessing one of the fungal wilts.

I went ahead and ordered Serenade, which is an organic method of control utilizing the soil borne microorganism Bacillus subtilis.

Marianna's Peace tomato with its potato leaves is a big plant. This is another new to me variety that should have pink fruit.

Green Cherokee is a surprise. Another very large plant it's setting a lot more fruit than Purple Cherokee ever did for me. It's supposed to be one of the best tasting green tomatoes out there. I'm also growing Aunt Ruby's German Green, which is a delicious albeit late tomato so we can have a comparison.

All the cucumbers are setting fruit except for Boothby's Blonde, which also happens to be the smallest plants. I've spotted what looks like spotted cucumber beetles but they're pink/red, hopefully they're just little ladybugs.

It looks like Charentais has set a single fruit. I'm hand pollinating the melons residing in the pepper beds. I haven't seen any bees in the garden yet, not even the tiny sweat bees which usually pollinate tomato plants.

Tuscany has set 2 or 3 fruit. Look how fuzzy they are! So cute.

The peppers are finally blooming. I might try hand pollinating in the morning to see if that helps.

And I'd like to share my experiences with different tomato supports:

There's lots of different methods for growing and supporting tomato plants. I have a friend who prunes her tomatoes to one stem so as to get earlier tomatoes. Whereas, I allow side shoots or suckers to develop and fruit since we have such a long growing season. When we lived in the mountains we only grew stout determinant plants because the seasons were so short.

I've tried different methods to support tomatoes. Letting them lay on the ground is the worst in terms of production. Staking is ok for bush or determinant varieties, kind of fiddly with the tying of the stems. Florida Weave takes work especially with indeterminant or long vining types, but string is cheap. Sandwiching plants between fencing is easy to put up and easy to take down, but harvesting can be difficult if you're short.

This is the second year we've used tomato cages. It's by far my favorite support system. I have both the thin gauge and powder coated cages. Since I plant tomatoes in double rows within a bed, the thin gauge cages get tied together at the top to give them more structural stability.

Harvest Monday, 7/18/16

A mixture of Black Cherry, Sun Gold, and Fat Cherry tomatoes were picked on Tuesday.

 There was also a cucumber, zucchini, and handful of green beans picked from the pole beans. 

 On Sunday the first eggplant and Ginkaku melon was picked. 

Golden King of Siberia weighed in at 0.902 pounds and there are also two Black Prince tomatoes in the front.

From bottom left counter clock-wise: Black Prince, Goldie, and an Italian Red Pear.

A few of the tomatoes had split from the heavy rains but luckily they weren't so bad. But the squirrels have definitely gotten a few big ripe tomatoes. I found three still hanging on the vine with bites taken out of the bottoms, three were dropped in the yard where they tried to carry them away, and two were in the ally where they managed to get them over the fence.

It's so unbearably hot and humid here, I can understand why people don't garden in this area.

Please join us at Harvest Monday, kindly hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres.

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.

Bamboo Ridge Trellis for Cucumbers and Pole Beans

I finally finished trellising the 25-30 foot row of pole beans on Thursday, the 25th. It only took a week of lacing brown string between top and bottom bamboo poles and untangling pole bean vines. The yard-long asparagus beans were knee high when I began but by the end of the week they're reaching the almost 6 feet tall posts. They must be loving the heat and humidity.

The other pole beans were so much longer and took forever to untangle. Hours upon hours. Heat upon heat.

In comparison this side of the trellis (which I actually did first) containing melons, cucumbers, loofa, and bitter melon was so much easier to trellis. It only took 2-3 days which included setting up the bamboo structure, zip tying netting to the bamboo posts, detangling vines and trying to get tendrils to attach to the netting.

All in all it took a week and a half of work in ninety-some degree weather. Our yard backs up to a shared alley, so there were lots of witnesses to me sweating up a storm mostly neighbors and passersby. Even a work crew with a big machine scraping weeds growing in the alley and the men later laying down new gravel. Ah well. Life goes on.

The First Ripe Tomatoes and Cucumber with Lots of Eggplants

A basket with almost 10 pounds (4.5 kg) of produce including green bean, tomato, eggplant, cucumber, and zucchini.

Today we got the first tomatoes and cucumber! I also spent the morning picking clean the bush bean bed.

The Paul Robeson tomato plant gave the first ripe tomatoes, my husband was helping me stake the same plant and 3 little green tomatoes got knocked off. You can see the two oval Applegreen eggplants in the back of the basket, then a Bangladeshi Long and a Thai Long Purple eggplant to the far right.

The first cucumber of the season belongs to the Japanese Long variety. Training the cucumbers up bamboo poles is working very well, I love seeing them dangling in the breeze. A nice long zucchini was also harvested today.

The bush beans got away from me because I was too busy over the weekend to do much except a little hand pollination in the garden, so the snap beans were a bit plump when they got picked today but are still tender and delicious. All the varieties produced exceptionally well, except for Royal Burgundy. The Royal Burgundy plants are tall and lush and were heavy with blossoms but the blossoms did not set very many beans, I was lucky to get 2 or 3 beans per plant.

The rabbit seems to love the Blue Lake 274 beans, I found lots of munched bean remnants today. Both Blue Lake and Royal burgundy are smooth bean varieties, which makes cleaning them a lot easier than the downy beans like Romano and Tendergreen. But I think I prefer the flavor of the downy fuzzy beans compared to the smooth snap beans.

The bush bean bed was pretty much picked clean today, so I am going to fertilize them and see if they will give a second flush of beans after some rest.

Okra, Pole Beans, and Cucumbers

The okra that are about knee high are just starting to form little okras, and the plants are forming side shoots as well which means more growing tips and even more okra. Most of the other okra plants are shorter than this because of replanting due to low germination.

The Cherokee Trail of Tears pole beans are thick and lush and have completely overtaken their 6 feet tall bamboo stakes (1.8 meters).

Lots of purple flowers and a few tiny beans can be found under the Cherokee Trail of Tears canopy.

The Chinese yard long beans are much further behind in comparison. The two varieties planted are Green Noodle and Mosaic yard long beans. The Mosaic yard longs beans have yet to blossom and are just starting to climb their poles.

The Green Noodle yard long asparagus beans may not be the most vigorous but they are producing beans much earlier than the other two pole bean varieties.

The Japanese Long cucumbers are coming along nicely, the blossoms have been hand pollinated.

Sweeter Yet F1 hybrid cucumbers are just starting to form.

I have only seen 3 bees in the garden this year. Usually there are bees everywhere in early spring visiting clover blossoms and Asian greens that have been allowed to bloom. Although, I have seen little insect pollinators visiting tomato blossoms this year. Bees are just so necessary for the pollination of zucchini, summer squash, winter squash, and okra.

Hand pollinating has been part of my daily regimen, but I am having mixed results. Zucchini and squash blossoms seem to be fertile for only a few hours in the morning, I have managed to get one zucchini and lots of dead baby squashes. Cucumber blossoms seem to be fertile for most of the day, so lots of growing cukes. I pollinate squashes and cucumbers by stripping the petals from the male flowers and dabbing the stamens at the center of the female flower. I use a q-tip on the okra which are perfect flowers containing both male and female parts in one blossom.

The First Female Zucchini Blossom and a Bit About Luffa and Bitter Melon

Can you see the tiny female flower with a tiny fuzzy baby zucchini attached to it?

A hill of cucumber plants with a single melon plant pictured at the bottom

Luffa plants starting to vine

Bitter melon vines are a bit grumpy from rough handling and weeding

The zucchini and summer squash are starting to form female flowers! The season of squash will soon be upon us. I am beyond thrilled considering last year not a single zucchini, summer squash, or patty pan was produced because of the infernal squash vine borers. Today, I saw the first squash vine borer moth outside the garden, it seemed like it was too big to get through the bird netting. Squash vine borers are red moths that look like red wasps and they fly around during the daytime laying a single egg at the base of plants. Infernal creatures. Alas, the bird netting doesn't extend over the back end of the garden where the wire fence is.

Three hills of cucumbers were planted and by the looks of it, they may be thinking about vining. Let's cross our fingers for loads of cucumbers this year. Cucumber and pineapple stir fry, baked stuffed cucumbers with cooked mushroom eggplant and ground pork, and fresh sweet pickled cucumbers here we come!

The two hills of luffa are starting to vine. Luffa belongs to the gourd family and come in smooth fruited varieties, or angled varieties which have long ridges. The young fruits are edible and may be cooked similarly to summer squash and cucumbers, and matured fruits can be used as exfoliating sponges. The angled loofah is too hard to peel so I'm growing a smooth variety.

The two hills of bitter melon are looking really good, they seem further along then the loofah. Bitter melon is quite the culinary treat. When they say bitter, they really mean bitter. Boiling the vegetable in a big pot of water helps to remove some of that knock you to your knees bitterness, then it can be sliced up and cooked with scrambled eggs or stuffed with ground pork and mushrooms and boiled in a new pot of water.