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.

Harvest Monday, 6/29/20

It has been so hot but the weather finally broke and we got some much needed rain this beautiful Monday. Hopefully we'll get a little less than the 1.3 inches of rain they are predicting between tonight and tomorrow.

The pattypan squash plants are huge with numerous branches. White Custard is tender for a pattypan squash while still holding it's shape well with cooking.

The Fordhook and Elite plants keep getting flipped over by the wind, but the zucchini they do produce are very nice. At this size they are not at all seedy with just a small spongy core.

The summer squash plants are coming into their own right now with lots of female flowers forming.

The round zucchini plants are trying so hard to put new roots down along their stems, but the wind keeps pushing them over and unmooring the little rootlets. I'm hoping they'll anchor themselves before their stem breaks from all the movement. They're not growing or producing as much because of it.

I found the first cucumber hiding near the ground. It's a little long in the tooth but there are a few more forming on the vines. These are growing in 5 feet tomato cages, which they have to be encouraged to climb.

At this point the garden is producing enough squash and zucchini, we could probably live off of them if we needed to. Lots of sautéed squash, squash in shrimp coconut curry, and squash hash have been eaten. I've ordered some udon to make squash and carrot curried noodles. 

I'm having problems in the large fruiting tomato patch. Classic yellowing of the leaves signaling magnesium deficiency which can be treated with Epsom salts. It's moving up the stem very quickly in a few plants, so I'll probably have to dig some into the soil around those plants once the rain passes. I've also been thinking about growing comfrey to use as a foiler feed for my garden.

Please join us for a gratifying and fun-filled Harvest Monday hosted by Dave at Happy Acres.

Harvest Monday, 6/22/20

We've been eating greens, herbs, and green onions from the garden. They usually go in omelets and soups.

Clockwise from the top left: lemon basil, red veined sorrel, edible chrysanthemum, green onion, and red amaranth. The amaranth is fairly bland, it does very well in the heat but I'm not sure I'll grow it again. The red veined sorrel is not lemony like I expected, although the texture is good. But the edible chrysanthemum has a very surprising flavor that is fairly herbal, my husband thinks it smells like a musty attic.

In the end we definitely prefer kale and mustard greens when it comes to flavor and texture.

Free range mustard greens and green onions which went great in a spicy noodle soup. The blooming tatsoi was still very good, I just snap off the tough parts. similarly to the way we snap the tough bottoms off asparagus. These became part of a spicy noodle soup, otherwise known as fancy ramen. I add sliced pork and an egg to the soup as well.

The first picking of squash on Wednesday, June 17th. Shown here is round zucchini and pattypan squash. My son had already chopped up the Straight Neck summer squash, dark green Fordhook zucchini, and another round zucchini before I could get a picture.

I ended up making a squash, pineapple, cucumber stir-fry with ground turkey and nuoc mam. It was actually pretty amazing. My maternal grandma made pineapple cucumber stir-fry with ground beef but I found that a bit too oily, and my father says his family usually made it with seafood like shrimp, octopus, or clams.

Pale yellow Butta zucchini on the left, four Straight Neck summer squash, and a pattypan squash. The two darker yellow summer squash on the left actually have much firmer skin than the two paler yellow summer squash on the right. Then tender skin of the pale summer squash reminds of Rugosa summer squash

All zucchini in this batch that was picked on Sunday.

There's been very few squash bugs or vine borers in the garden this year. The 3 squash bugs I did see ended up disappearing later. I'm attributing this to the surprising number of beneficial lady bugs in the garden as well as a long cold and wet spring. We might actually end up with an overabundance of squash this year. I only wish I had planted some winter squash.

What to do with all this squash and zucchini? Squash hash browns. Just shredded squash dipped in a little egg with salt and pepper and lightly coated in panko bread crumbs, and then fried in patties in a little oil. They're wonderful, so light and tasty. My friend uses almond flour for lower carbs.

I've added shredded cheddar cheese and chopped ham to the squash hash browns, which is just amazing especially served with macaroni and cheese. They also reheat very well in an air fryer.

There's a lot going on in the garden. Bush snap beans are thinking about blooming, little tomatoes are swelling, and it's actually time to start thinking about starting plants for the fall garden. I read an interesting blog post about overwintering broccoli and cauliflower plants that end up setting very early heads in the spring. It'd be a fun experiment to try.

Please join us for Harvest Monday, hosted by David at Happy Acres. Where gardeners from all around post about what's happening in their little and not so little vegetable plots.

An Epic Year in the Vegetable Garden

Apologies for not posting, but we have been having the best year in the garden ever. I have been gardening for over twenty years, and I have never seen anything like this. Yesterday I gave away 90 pounds of tomatoes between family, neighbors, and coworkers. And yet, there are still tomatoes on the counter. So far we have canned 44 quarts of salsa and 14 quarts of tomato juice.

I have even started picking green tomatoes for people to fry up, which I never do. The plan is to pressure can the rest of the tomatoes in juice and make some green tomato pickles. A friend of mine says she has canned so far, 130 quarts of snap beans and last year they had only canned 50 quarts. And it's not even the end of the season yet. People in our area are abandoning their gardens and telling neighbors to come pick what they want because they're done canning for the year.

Months ago I scheduled to be off the last week of July for canning because that's usually when tomatoes start coming in strong. Instead I'll be pulling out the bush beans since rust is moving quickly through the patch and rabbits are nesting there. And I'll be clearing out most of the zucchini and summer squashes, and the greenhouse.

So here's a few pictures of what we've been harvesting.

I ordered a Victorio food strainer to help with making juices and sauces, and found it much more efficient than a food mill.

The winter squash beds are inaccessible but a few are growing along the fence. I'm hoping there's lots of them hiding in their patch.

This year we're growing Queensland Blue winter squash, Black Futsu pumpkin, Thai Rai Kaw Tok pumpkin, and Yokohama winter squash,

We won't be having any melons this year, since they're all overshadowed by the massive tomato plants. And the leeks were squished by the rampaging zucchini plants, but maybe they'll recover once the zucchini gets pulled.

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.

A Tour of the Vegetable Garden in June

Our shadiest bed is home to Mizuna a leafy green, 3 eggplants ravaged by flea beetles, and kohlrabi. Mizuna and kohlrabi are normally spring vegetables but they're trooping along even with temperatures in the mid 90's (35 degree Celsius).

The hot pepper bed needs to be weeded badly, they're high on my list along with the leeks and fennel. The plants next to the wood fence are tall enough they're starting to get a lean to them, so they'll need to be staked soon. There's 42 pepper plants in this bed.

The peppers are a lot taller this year, even the jalapenos and lemon drop are getting to be tall plants. It's might be due to the weather because in hotter years they tend to be shorties, either that or maybe it's because they're spaced closer together. It makes me wonder if the yield will be affected since they're putting more energy into growth rather than fruit production.

And two bush bean beds have merged into one ginormous bed. You might not be able to tell, but there's a small fence around the bean bed made with 2 foot tall bamboo poles and string to keep them from flopping in the paths . At least the bush beans are starting to bloom, but I wonder how I'll be able to harvest them.

Snap beans are one of my favorite things from the garden. We sauté snap beans in olive oil with onion and long strips of carrot, add a little chicken stock and cook it down till the liquid is absorbed, so good. And of course, they're fantastic in stir fries.

And the fennel which is in another shadier bed is actually starting to bulb. I'm just as shocked as you are. They were so tiny and root bound and it's been so hot lately, but they're still managing to do their thing. There's some pole beans in the back of this bed, and yes that is a wall of Cosmonaut Volkov and Peron tomato plants to the right.
And the winter squash are starting to vine, there's a patch of them on either side of the greenhouse. It's been years since I've grown winter squash and I had forgotten just how massive they truly are. These were planted May 14th, to the left is Queensland Blue and to the right is Thai Rai Kow Tok. In the front are summer squash and zucchini which I use to block the winter squash from traveling into the rest of the garden.

Another winter squash bed with Yokohama to the left, Black Futsu to the right, and summer squash in front. I read a review on Black Futsu where someone harvested 37 squashes from a single plant that was growing in their tomato bed.

This is actually the shadier of the squash beds as some reviews of Yokohama and Black Futsu suggests they prefer a bit of shade.

The zucchini and summer squash bed is starting to encroach on the leeks. That's a bale of straw hiding beneath the leaves of the zucchini plants on the left.

I've planted lots of zucchini, patty pan, and summer squashes this year because squash bugs and squash vine borers usually kill or weaken most of the plants.

Against the 3 feet tall wire fence is planted a few Beck's Big Buck okra that were planted out as seedlings, the winter squash Queensland Blue is definitely crowding them a bit.

Here's a better picture of the row of okra, the three plants directly seeded on May 19th are still pretty small in comparison and above you can see a wilting vine of winter squash probably hit by a vine borers.

I'm still trying to keep the bottom of the tomato plants trimmed, but they are pretty unruly at this point. Various fungal disease are showing up in 3 of the tomato beds. I've tried spraying with a copper fungicide but will be trying Serenade, an organic control for fungus and bacteria.

I'm starting to suspect tomato speck is my main problem as the stems and fruit are infected as well. I've dug up one Manyel plant and heavily trimmed another of the same variety. It's possible we got some contaminated seeds and then the red tomato aphids are spreading the disease. I've never actually had aphid problems before in all my years in western Kentucky. Usually there are droves of ladybugs but there's only been a handful in the garden this year.

The tall tomato plants in back are supposed to be the determinate Celebrity (F1). They are considered a vigorous determinant or semi-determinant, but still they've grown way above the 54 inch cages. We've had the perfect spring and the plants are bigger than I've ever seen them.

This  Black Cherry tomato plant is taller than the 6 feet wooden fence. I've had to stake the cage with 3 bamboo poles.

I am mildly optimistic even with the diseases traipsing through the garden. It looks like it might be a banner year, which will hopefully be dubbed "The Year of the Tomato". I've taken a week off at the end of July with the hope of canning lots and lots of salsa.

The weather cooled off Saturday, so I actually got some weeding done for the leeks and peppers. Hopefully I can finish weeding the peppers, fennel, and winter squash beds before it rains Sunday afternoon.

And interestingly enough, something is parasitizing the aphids. I usually squash them with gloved fingers when I find them, but lately I've been finding their little tan mummified bodies with no young juicy ones in site.

Harvest Monday, 8/1/16

We are very excited by the first of the broccoli, hopefully they will have a long season since there's 5 varieties planted in the garden. Again, it's Waltham that is first to produce. There's also Jimmy Nardello peppers and Santa Fe Grande peppers. And the first paste tomato is San Marzano Redorta. I'm still picking tomatoes a bit under ripe trying to keep them from the critters.

With the influx of tomatoes I plan on making sauce and canning this weekend and maybe roast some for the freezer.

Zucchini, yellow summer squash, and snap beans keep trickling in. We have 4 varieties of yellow summer squash planted including a couple hybrids, but they haven't done much since the vine borers attacked. The beans are used in stir fries and dishes for our little one.

And the first kohlrabi. I was wrong, the really ripe Ginkaku melon is actually awesome when well chilled, and they keep forever in the fridge. So good. The eggplants are starting to ripen at a steadier pace. I plan on freezing some marinated grilled eggplant for the winter.

It's been raining regularly, about 10 inches for the month of July as I've been told. It's a great time of year with lots of cooking and harvesting from the garden. The wax melon plants are running wild and I have high hopes for their future. Even as my dreams for winter squash go out with a whimper as August moves in.

August is when I'll start clearing the zucchini and summer squash beds, and clearing off the bush beans and pole bean trellises to make room for fall plantings like snap peas and snow peas. Lettuce, fennel, beets, spinach, and a plethora of greens will need to be started by the end of August so they'll be bigger when they get planted out in September. There's lots to do and lots to look forward to.

Please join us at Harvest Monday, where gardeners far and wide gather to share their vegetable adventures.

Harvest Monday, 7/24/16

It's been a hot year and I'm starting to look forward to fall and winter. We had such a mild winter last year, I wonder what this year will bring.

Tomatoes are coming in but the squirrels have discovered and are getting tons of them. They've been tearing the fruit off the vines or just eating them where they hang. What I thought were peck marks from birds, turns out they're claw marks from squirrels.

Cherry tomatoes are really nice to have around, they're great in omelets or just to pop in the mouth.

Combined the bush beans and pole beans are producing terribly this year, but at least they are starting to produce more. I'll probably be pulling them to make room for a fall planting of peas eventually.

Cucumbers, eggplant, zucchini, and summer squash still coming in steady amounts. Squash bugs have invaded, so every couple of days I go out with duct tape to collect eggs and the occasional nymph and adult squash bug. After being hit by vine borers, the plants just aren't producing many squashes, plus there are cucumber beetles everywhere.

Three small ripe melons and a summer squash. The Ginkaku melons keep making melons, I counted eight still on the vines. Squirrels have been digging in the bed, killing one of the four plants.

I also picked a more ripe melon that isn't pictured to see how it would taste, very sweet and still crispy but starting to get a bit mealy. We much prefer them crispier with their sweet citrusy kind of honeydew flavor.

I picked a few tomatoes on Sunday that were just starting to ripen, to beat the squirrels. You can see the puncture marks from their claws on the Black Brandywine from when they got a couple of the other fruits. I'll probably go back to using fencing as supports for the tomatoes next year.

The loofah plants have started taking over the whole row of trellises but not a single bloom has yet to form, which makes me think their blossoming is dependent on day length. The winter squash and wax melons have just started vining, hopefully there's enough time left for some fruit to set. And the first Jimmy Nardello peppers are just starting to ripen, which I'm very excited to try.

Please join us at Harvest Monday, a place where gardeners and vegetable enthusiasts share their love of growing things.

Harvested this week:
10.632 lbs. tomatoes
3.932 lbs. melon
2.336 lbs. zucchini
2.000 lbs. cucumber
1.158 lbs. green beans
0.536 lbs. yellow summer squash
0.402 lbs. eggplant

weekly total: 20.996 pounds