We had a week of unsettled weather, but at least it rained a couple of times, which really helped with the drought. Again, not much time spent in the garden. Besides the lingering cold, I had a partial nail removal for a pincer toenail (about as much fun as it sounds) which required me to stay off my feet for a couple of days. The good news is I have carrot seeds germinating, which is pretty much a first for me. What I did different this time is plant them deeper so seeds would be less likely to dry out.
Lots of peppers are becoming ready to harvest. The bell peppers are Revolution and are the only bell peppers that will produce for me. The other peppers are Carmen and Jimmy Nardello. The JN peppers are often red on one side and green on the other. You really have to do a total scan of the fruit before you pick if you want your peppers completely red on all sides.
More squash, some too big and some just right. and a Tasty Jade cucumber. The brown objects are very small Poona Kheera cucumbers, an heirloom from India. None of the cucumbers are doing well this year, despite having ducked the wilt bug so far. It has probably been too dry for their liking and I can not get to the garden every day to water.
Lots of tomatoes now coming in. This is a basket of small tomatoes including Jaune Flamme, Juliet, Esterina, Sweet Treats, and Chocolate Pear.
More squash and peppers, plus two more Tasty Jade cucumbers. I have the makings of gazpacho with the harvests this week.
The two pink tomatoes at the top are Pruden’s Purple, and it is turning out to be a nice tomato. Despite some early yellowing on the bottom, the plant has continued to grow and set fruit even in the raised bed, and is now over the top of the 6 foot trellis. It does crack easily. The larger tomato (at 1 pound 1 ounce) cracked on the bottom and became Sunday dinner’s side dish. The orange tomatoes are Sunkist and they are a great tomato. The fruits are usually completely blemish free and look like the catalog photo.
Here is a Sunkist sliced for BLT sandwiches. Flesh is meaty and juicy with small seed cavities and flavor is very good.
The paste tomatoes are starting to ripen in large enough quantities to start doing something with them. Chili sauce is first on the list. The Roma tomatoes of unknown variety are interesting. Seeds came from one fruit but the resultant plants are producing fruit of two different shapes. Two of the plants have the long, slim profile of the tomatoes on top, while other plants are producing the egg shaped fruit in the middle. Shapes are not mixed on a plant and each plant bears only one shape of fruit.
More small tomatoes, so it is time to fire up the dehydrator again. The Sweet Treats are really tasty when dried. The color balance is off in this photo, since none of the Esterina cherries were green when picked.
That is what happened in my garden last week. To see what other gardeners around the world are doing, visit Daphne’s Dandelions, our host for Harvest Monday.
The Sunkist looks really tasty. Everything else looks great, too. How deep did you plant your carrot seeds to improve germination? That's always a struggle for me.
ReplyDeleteNormally I plant them fairly shallow since they are small seeds and the seedlings are tiny. This time I put them about 3/4 inch deep and that helped.
DeleteWonderful harvests! Sunkist is on my list to try next year & your description just moved it to the top.
ReplyDeleteWould you say that the Jimmy Nardello's are a lot better if completely red? I'm still waiting on mine and if there is not a big flavour difference between partially red and totally red, then I would rather pick them at the earlier stage, which would likely get me bigger harvest overall.
I'll have to remember that tip for planting the carrots - I would have thought that you wouldn't get any germination planting them that deeply.
That sunkist tomato look so pretty. I was pretty happy for the rain too, but we never got a lot. We really need a good 2" soaking rain for the while yard.
ReplyDeleteI love looking at photos of tomatoes! They are objects of beauty in my eyes. So far it is mostly just the cherry tomatoes that have ripened in my garden, but hopefully others will follow soon.
ReplyDeleteI love it when the day comes that you have enough tomatoes "to do something with"! I just bought some new canning jars and I'm getting the dehydrator going too. Woohoo! It looks like you've got your work cut out too. Hope you are back on your feet soon.
ReplyDeleteI enjoy the variety of tomatoes! I plan to grow a yellow or orange variety next year. They're a little lower in acid, and so tasty!
ReplyDeleteThat Sunkist! I am now going to have a tomato sandwich for dinner because that is making me drool (albeit with my plain jane red tomato). I pick the JN's as you do, but I find within a couple of days they have turned completely red.
ReplyDeleteI too am in love with that Sunkist tomato. Hope you get rid of your cold soon, summer colds are nasty.
ReplyDeleteI love the sound of that Sweet Treat tomato, especially the 'tasty when dried' since we dry a lot of tomatoes here. I also like the 'crack-free' in the catalog description. Hope you are back to 100% soon!
ReplyDeleteYour summer produce is ramping up, love sweet and crack-free tomatoes, I'm not doing well in the tomato department this year. Hope you get well soon.
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