Harvest Monday, 7/12/21

Mix of cherry tomatoes and small tomatoes like Jaune de Flamme, Sun Gold, Candyland, Yellow Pear, Bumble Bee, and Jelly Bean. None of the tomatoes are really sweet right now, which is likely due to the very hot dry weather interspersed with torrential rainfall. Yellow pear is sourish and the tiny Candyland has surprisingly crispy flesh.

Garlic chives, red shisho or perilla, and green shisho or perilla. I find perilla to have a complex herbaceous flavor that's hard to describe. People say it has an astringent or basil like flavor, but I don't find that at all. So far they've been put in stir fries at the end of cooking.

I had problems seed starting the perilla. What finally worked was wrapping them in damp paper-towels inside ziplock bags, and then wrapping that in a towel on top of a seedling heat mat with a thermometer to keep them from getting too hot.

On the left is Colza (rapeseed) and on the right is Nero di Tuscana kale. There's also assorted cherry tomatoes.

Ner di Tuscana can be a little coarse during the hottest part of our summer, but the leaves are never bitter. It's actually my first year growing Colza and I find the flavor very similar to kale, and the leaves are nice and tender with no signs of blooming. 

This is what happens when you don't go in the garden for 3 days, lots of big zucchini and cucumbers. There's a yellow Butta zucchini in the back, the short blunt ones are Bolognese which were still seedless surprisingly, and the round ones are Chiaro di Nizza.

I did grow some White Custard pattypan squash, but a few were terribly bitter. So now I'm always eating a few slices of zucchini raw before cooking.

The cucumbers on the right are mostly Telegraph which have been fantastic in salads. Luckily they go to seed very slowly.

From left to right: Stella, Nero De Tuscana kale, Colza, and sorrel. Stella's slender leaves are crunchy but it has a bitter endnote that I'm hoping cooking will tame. The bitterness could be due to the heat or the fact it's going to seed. Sorrel on the far right is shockingly lemony.

We've also been getting a few Jet Star tomatoes for a couple weeks and they are great in salads and stir fries. The plant has good disease resistance and has bounced back well after being terribly rootbound when planting was delayed. The other large tomatoes are still a ways behind.

I've been eating massive salads everyday for months. Makes me sad we didn't grow any spring lettuce. So, lots of endive, escarole, chicory and lettuce were started over the weekend in preparation for the fall garden.

One note on failures. I had started rhubarb from seed. Had nice beautiful plants, which were then killed by over fertilization. When they say one tablespoon of fish emulsion per gallon of water, that's really what they mean.

Please join us for Harvest Monday, a group of intrepid gardeners, where neither harsh winds, sun, or rain will keep us from growing vegetables.

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, 7/26/20

Tomatoes have come on strong this week. There's 45 tomato plants in my garden with 15 of them being small or cherry types. We'd been talking about drying the garden produce this year, which is why there are so many cherry tomato plants. I told my husband two weeks ago that we needed a game plan worked out because they were going to start ripening en masse.

On Sunday we processed about 40 pounds of tomatoes which are in the drying tent with a dehumidifier as I'm typing this. My husband is a ceramic artist and he uses a similar setup to quick dry newly made clay pieces in preparation for a kiln firing.

We've actually eaten a couple tomatoes the week before, but I've been kind of overwhelmed by the garden to post pictures. It's the weeding. The weeds have been going to seed and I couldn't let that happen, so between torrential rain showers I've been weeding like an insane person.

More tomatoes were picked on Saturday but aren't shown here. The small and cherry tomatoes include Juliet, Sungold, Fat Cherry, Black Cherry, Gardener's Delight, Taxi, and Juanne Flamme. The large tomatoes shown include Green Cherokee which have a yellowish skin color although the interior is very green, Giant Australian, and Brandywine. We've been eating tomatoes everyday this week so not shown are Marianna's Peace, Carbon, Oaxacan, and Goldie. The standout of the large tomatoes was Marianna's Peace, unless I'm confusing it with another tomato, it was delicious with a distinctly salty flavor. And for the cherry's, Juliet is just lovely, nice firm meaty texture with a sweet flavor that reminded me of a good grape tomato.

Also, you can see where I avoided the squash and zucchini beds because of all the rain and then was greeted by massive squashes. Must not put off visiting the squash beds. Once the tomatoes are dried, we're going to dry the squashes as well.

I've had a couple good pickings of snap beans. The first picking, the snap beans were sautéed with strips of carrots in a little olive oil with salt, pepper, and dried herbs till they were caramelized with a good bit of color. Then I added chicken stock and cooked it down until most of the liquid was cooked off.

A picture of the second picking of snap beans, right before cooking. I'm only growing 3 varieties of beans this year, Merveille De Piemonte, Purple King, and La Victoire bush bean.

The second batch of green beans was prepared in a similar manner to the first but I added orange juice at the end, instead of chicken broth. Then finished it with a Pico Fruta spice blend that includes chili pepper and lemon peel.

The tomato bed with Giant Australian, Oaxacan, Carbon, and Brandywine are dying from disease. Most likely fungal because of the very wet weather we've had this year. I'm leery of using tomatoes from diseased plants, so am pulling that bed this week.

I've already cleared the lettuce bed and one of the squash beds. The plan is to plant peas, more bush beans, rutabaga, endive, and chicory in the three beds.

Please join us for Harvest Monday, hosted by Dave at Happy Acres. A place to share what you're harvesting and the fun things you might be doing with your produce because eating goes hand in hand with gardening.

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.

Corn Tasseling and Other Things in the Garden

The Buhl sweet corn is tasseling, and I can see little corns forming. So cool.

The long season Morado corn is already as tall as me. It's supposed to end up 8-12 feet tall. Only a few stalks lodged at the beginning when they were a foot tall, but they're all staying nice and upright now even with all the rain and wind we've been getting.

Buhl sweet corn tasseling. They're only about 4.5 feet tall at this point.

A few of the stalks only have a single ear forming, but I've counted a few stalks with possibly 4 ears starting.

Baby Buhl corn? So cute. They're actually a very well rooted variety with no signs of lodging. I can actually see them forming more roots at the bottom of their stems, so they're very stable. 

The Butta(F1) zucchini is making babies! My husband got me a big spiralizer for Mother's Day, so I'm incredibly excited. This yellow zucchini is very prolific.

This baby Tuscany melon is about three inches long, but I've seen them get this large and yellow and fall off. So fingers crossed that doesn't happen.

Looks like this is the only baby the Charentais melon has set. They haven't made many female blooms yet and the bed is fairly overcrowded so pollinators probably have problems getting to them.

The onions that were started from seed are making me crazy. Half the bed died out when the Cipolle di Tropea red onions got powdery mildew. The Borettana Cipollini onions aren't swelling up yet, but otherwise they're coping with the rain well. I went ahead and seeded beets in the back half of this bed.

Tall Top Early Wonder beet in the onion bed. They popped up in just 3 days with the warm weather we've been having.

The leeks are doing wonderfully. I've never gotten them to this size in Kentucky before. This variety is American Flag. I'm growing them in clumps of three about 8-12 inches apart. I tried trenching them last year which worked very well, but the squash plants ended up overrunning them.

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, 7/3/17

On June 26th we harvested tomatoes with Black Brandywine as the biggest one weighing 1.418 pounds. Also pictured is Granny Cantrell's German Red, Paul Robeson, Cosmonaut Volkov, Black Prince, and Taxi.

Black Brandywine continues to produce early heavy tomatoes. Cosmonaut Volkov and Paul Robeson are producing the biggest tomatoes I have ever seen from them, which tells me they don't like our normally hot spring weather. But there are some gigantic Pink Brandywines starting to ripen that should weigh more.

Also harvested June 26th: beans, Butta zucchini, and basil. My husband was elated to see fresh beans coming in from the garden.

I picked the basil thinking it would go well with tomatoes and fresh mozzarella, but with more than 5 pounds of tomatoes harvested a day it looks like salsa canning is scheduled for Friday.

 June 27th: just under a pound of beans and some cherry tomatoes.

June 27th: Butta zucchini and Zephyr squash.

June 27th was a good day for tomatoes with more than eleven pounds shown here.

On the 27th: the never ending parade of squash continues.

 Harvested June 28th: almost seven pounds of tomatoes.

Also harvested June 28th: under three pounds of peppers. The peppers were a disappointment this year. The plants are big and lush and the peppers themselves are huge but the yield is dismal. In 2013 my first harvest of peppers was 12 pounds with almost the same number of plants. We haven't gotten a single pepper from Numex Joe E. Parker yet.

On the June 29th we were running around getting ready to can salsa the next day so I didn't get to photograph 17 pounds of tomatoes, almost 3 pounds of beans, and just under 4 pounds of squash picked that day. I'm trying to process the salsa only when our kiddo is out of the house because the fumes from all the peppers and onions can get pretty bad.

With all the tomatoes coming in we're going to try pressure canning tomato juice and sauces. It'll be great, we can add the tomato juice to our fresh vegetable juice blend. My favorite is carrot, celery, and apple that we run through our juicer. We'll probably can some crushed and whole tomatoes for  soups and chili.

Harvested this week:
41.644 pounds tomatoes
8.918 pounds squash
5.686 pounds beans
2.720 pounds peppers
0.294 pound cherry tomatoes

Total Harvest: 56.542 pounds

Please join us at Harvest Monday hosted by Dave at Our Happy Acres, a happening place full of vegetables and their gardens.

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.