Harvest Monday 6 October 2014

Last week I started the garden clean up process. I decided time to pull the bush beans because I need that bed for planting garlic. Turns out the beans are not ready to give up just yet. The Provider beans were kaput but I got a good picking from Jade which provided a meal for us that night. In addition I got an even bigger pile from the pole beans. The Musica beans were still cranking, although the cold nights are finally shutting them down. I got a few more Gold Marie beans but they are now finished and many of the pods have been damaged by some pest feeding on them. Surprisingly, the Violetto beans are putting on growth and flowering for a third time. If I just had a longer growing season, they would be a very productive bean.

 

 

I am puzzled by the pest that is feeding on the beans. I was expecting to find some green stink bugs, which like to drill into the pods, but so far have not found any. I did spot a couple of small, narrow black insects crawling around the Musica beans, which also have suffered some damage. Unfortunately, they had vanished by the time I fetched my camera. These things were not bug shaped nor beetle shaped. The body was sort of wasp shaped but with no apparent wings. The body was black with no apparent markings. They did not look like tarnished plant bugs. I have checked photos of bean pests online and have not found a match. I hope I can get a photo of them because I would like to know what I am dealing with.

 

 

Next up was pulling the tomato plants. I got a lot of green tomatoes for the effort and made a batch of refrigerator pickled green tomatoes. When pulling the tomatoes out of the raised beds, I had to be careful not to damage the peppers in the next row. Because of the loose, friable soil in the beds, the tomato roots like to roam the neighborhood and make themselves at home. Next year I have to reconsider what I put in the squares next  to the tomatoes. I may go back to planting shallower rooted plants like the onions in those squares.

 

 

The plant above is a Sunkist tomato from a raised bed. You can see the length of some of the roots. Most of the very longest roots seem to have grown from the top of the root ball at the base of the stem. This pretty well illustrates the advantage of planting the tomatoes deep enough to bury some of the stem. And of course, the beds are only 8 inches deep so going down is not an option.

 

 

Next I pulled the tomatoes that were planted in-ground in my extra garden plot. Those tomatoes did very well this year compared to the plants in the raised beds, and despite fairly poor soil. So I was curious to see what their root structures looked like. The two plants above are Brandywine and the root balls are probably about the same size as the Sunkist but without the really long roots. Apparently the roots found everything the plants needed in their own backyard and didn’t have to go roaming. At this point I realized I should have photographed the Sunkist and Brandywine root balls side by side, but the Sunkist was already buried deep in a trash bag of tomato plants and rotten tomatoes and I was not putting my hand in there.

 

 

The Carmen peppers have finally started to ripen. I got a large set of fruit on the two plants in the in-ground garden but they were taking their good old time ripening. How do you tell a pepper the clock is ticking and frost is on the way? I also picked some more Trinidad Spice peppers and have another five on the plant in various stages of ripening. 

 

 

I tried to harvest a single head of escarole from the August planting and wound up with two. Since I planted them farther apart than usual, they have kind of flopped on the ground so the leaves are entirely green. The first one I tried was kind of tough. I need to tie them up into heads so the center of the head blanches. Amazingly there was not a single spot of slug or earwig damage to these heads.

 

That’s what came from my garden last week. To see what other gardeners around the world are harvesting from their gardens, check out Daphne’s Dandelions, our host for Harvest Monday.

Harvest Monday 1 September 2014

 

Still lots of squash and tomatoes from the garden, but at least the beans have slowed down. The food pantry was closed Saturday for the holiday so the kitchen counters are crowded and my refrigerator is temporarily stuffed with the excess.

 

 

I finally got a couple of the Crystal Apple cucumbers to reach size. They are shown above next to the slightly larger Richmond Green Apple cucumber. They are a little fuzzy and have white spines compared to the black spines on the Richmond. Taste and texture is similar for both. They are both juicy and crunchy and if not picked too big, don’t need the skin peeled. You can eat them like an apple or slice them for salads.

 

 

An assortment of vegetables, including more of the Bay Meadows broccoli and a nice Summer Dance cucumber. I only showed a sample of the four types of beans I picked.

 

 

More squash, cucumbers and a Revolution bell pepper. That pepper has lived up to is reputation of being a good producer of bell peppers in the north. For the last few years I have avoided bell peppers because of their poor yield and grown only smaller peppers like Lipstick and now Carmen that are productive and ripen quickly.

 

 

Some of the tomato glut. The large, good looking tomato on the right is a Cherokee Purple, so not all of them are completely ugly.

 

 

Another sampling of tomatoes, most of these are Brandywine and Pineapple heirlooms. The weird one at the bottom is actually two tomatoes that set on the stem opposite each other and were pressed together as they grew.

 

That’s all from the garden last week. To see what other gardeners around the world are harvesting, head over to Daphne’s Dandelions, our host for Harvest Monday.

Beans and Squash and Tomatoes, Oh no …

It’s August in the garden, so the harvest includes the usual suspects, beans, squash, and finally, tomatoes in large quantities. The beans I did not bother to photograph, and I only show a sampling of the tomatoes.

 

 

Some more beets and a couple of turnips. A rabbit in the garden has discovered that beetroot tastes a lot better than just beet leaves and has been nibbling the beets. The ones above were the only survivors. I need to set a rat trap in that bed since I have more beets and spinach seeded there.

 

 

I finally got my first broccoli. This is Bay Meadows, which Fedco raves about. It was very slow to start and only now has decided to put on a growth spurt.

 

 

The ugly tomatoes on the left are Cherokee Purple from the vine that fell over. The big fruit there was 12 ounces.

 

 

Finally getting a few cucumbers. Others have had a banner year, but not me. Bacterial wilt has wiped out a large number of the vines. The large cuke in the center is a Poona Kheera, an Indian heirloom variety that is new for me. I picked the first one while still white and small, thinking it was the Crystal Apple. This one I let get bigger. When mature they are supposed to turn yellow and then brown, but all this thing did is get bigger. I have no idea how big they get, so I picked this one (it already weighs a pound) since they are still edible at any stage. I haven’t tried it yet since it takes a little planning to figure out what do do with a one pound cucumber.

 

 

The Richmond Green Apple cucumber above is an Australian heirloom that produces small roundish cucumbers, similar to Crystal Apple and Lemon. They can be eaten without peeling, just like an apple, and are sweet and crunchy. The Crystal Apple cukes were to small to pick one for comparison. For some reason both varieties were very late to produce fruit this year but the remaining vines not killed by wilt are now growing rapidly up the trellis and setting lots of fruit. So it’s a race with the cold weather to see if I get any more of these.

 

 

An assortment of peppers. The red pepper in the middle is my first Lipstick, next to a couple of Carmen. I thought these two varieties were roughly equivalent, but they are not. Carmen is much larger, much more productive and ripens faster than Lipstick. At the bottom, my first Poblanos. The one on the left has turned yellow as it starts to ripen but I picked it anyway because I want these for Chiles Rellenos.

 

 

An assortment of squash, including my first Tromboncino and just the second Costata Romanesco.

 

 

The Brandywine tomatoes are starting to color and these were picked to lessen the load on the vines.

 

 

Pineapple tomatoes above. The biggest one unfortunately cracked badly.

 

 

Finally, more Cherokee Purple on the left, to get them off the ground where things have been eating holes in them And the remaining Sunkist on the right.

 

That’s all from my garden this week. To see what is happening in other gardens around the world, head over to Daphne’s Dandelions, our host for Harvest Monday.

Harvest Monday 18 August 2014

Last week, the weather was moderate with a lot of cloudy days that suggested rain, but it only rained significantly for one day. We got several inches that day but the garden was so dry that it was all absorbed. When I got back to the garden, a few things were a little overgrown. At this time of year  the beans and squash really need to be checked every day.

 

 

More beans. The purple ones are Trionfo Violetto. I froze a lot of those but have no more room in the freezer. A large amount of the beans were again donated to the food pantry.

 

 

Some of the heirloom tomatoes are starting to ripen. Above are a Brandywine and a Pineapple on the right. The heirloom tomato vines are loaded with clusters of very large tomatoes and show little signs of actually ripening. I am a little worried about the tomato stakes snapping under the load. That’s a problem I haven’t had in a long time.

 

 

The long peppers are Carmen, a sweet pepper that is turning out to be very productive. A few Sunkist orange tomatoes and a very green Cherokee Purple. My Cherokee Purple plant was loaded with large fruit like the one above when it fell over. The heavy rain saturated the soil and the pole wasn’t driven deep enough, so the plant toppled toppled over as the pole came out of the soggy ground.

 

 

A fully ripened Sunkist tomato sliced up. This is a meaty, low-acid tomato with good flavor. It is very productive and fairly disease resistant, a tomato I will be growing again.

 

 

More squash and a few Cherokee Purple tomatoes starting to color up (as well as crack, damn rain).

 

 

More beans.

 

 

The last Napa cabbage, considerably reduced in size after removing the slug-damaged outer leaves. This one was used for slaw. I used some of the previous cabbage and some radishes to make kimchee, which turned out OK. It is a little too salty and a tad too hot for my taste, but not bad.

 

That is what happened in my garden last week. To see what other gardeners around the world are harvesting from their gardens, head over to Daphne’s Dandelions, our host for Harvest Monday.

Back to Gardening

 

Last week I took a break from gardening and joined my siblings on an Erie canal trip on a chartered canal boat. The picture above shows our boat moored at Canal Park in the tiny village of Holley, New York, with the Holley Lift Bridge in the background. The trip celebrated my 70th birthday and the voyage our ancestor, Michael Velten, took in 1848 when he emigrated from Germany to Ohio via the Erie canal.

 

While we were gone, my son watered the garden and harvested my garlic scapes. When I got back, the garden was not only still alive but getting out of control. I spent several days taming the tomatoes, weeding and grooming. The only thing bolting was the Dragon Tongue mustard. The other lettuces and greens look good for awhile, but I harvested and froze a lot of greens.

 

Below is tomato Jaune Flamme which I started from seed, so I would like you to notice the extremely vigorous, healthy plants. The tomato truss in the photo has at least 10 tomatoes and others have as many as 12. They get 1.5-2” in diameter and have an orange color and supposedly terrific taste. Michelle has grown these for years and I am finally trying them and I have high expectations.

 

 

I again planted a couple of Juliet tomatoes, below, plants grown by my neighbor, Jem Mix. While Juliet is always the standard for gonzo, out of control tomatoes, this year they are being challenged by many of their neighbors in the garden. This shows a nice truss of 10+ tomatoes.

 

 

For example, below is Sunkist, another tomato I started from seed. Sunkist is an orange slicer with 8-10 ounce fruits developed by the University of New Hampshire and exclusive to High Mowing Seeds. The plants are stout and vigorous and already setting a lot of fruit but they don’t sucker as bad as Juliet.

 

 

Speaking of gonzo tomatoes, below are a couple of Blue Beech paste tomatoes from my neighbor, Jem Mix. I bought these from Jem because I killed my Opalka starts. That is why I am so proud of my Jaune Flamme, Esterina, and Sunkist plants, which are obviously hardy plants tolerant of a little spring time neglect. Blue Beech is a paste tomato collected from Blue Beech Farm in Danby, Vermont and sold by Fedco. Seeds originally came from Italy over 50 years ago. It should be well adapted to our crazy New England summers by now and will hopefully do better than my past trials with Roman Striped and Gilberties. While I was away, these guys suckered like crazy and it took a lot of time to clean out the mass of foliage to allow better air circulation.

 

 

Below is a truss of Blue Beech tomatoes already set. This is a 90-day tomato so hopefully we have a late Fall to let these guys fully ripen.

 

 

Another experiment this year is growing shallots from seed rather than bulbs. Last year I planted $20 worth of bulbs in the fall only to find every single one rotted over a tough winter. Below are my Saffron seed shallots looking pretty good. The shallot stems are thickening and looking like they are going to be putting energy into bulbs. This is just like growing onions from seed, each plant produces a single shallot bulb.

 

 

Some people didn’t return to the community garden this year, so some extra plots were available. I am splitting an additional plot with another gardener. Below is my half, planted to tomatoes and peppers, with a couple hills of summer squash. This allowed me to plant some heirloom tomatoes I wouldn’t have room for in the raised beds. Below are 4 Pineapple, 4 Brandywine, a Cherokee Purple, and another Sunkist.

 

 

So I am back and the garden is looking great. Today is July 4 and a traditional barbeque day. I have St. Louis-style ribs rubbed up and waiting for a chance to start a fire between the rain showers. A head of bok choy is going into an Asian-style slaw, which will get another large volume out of the refrigerator and make my wife happy. Probably no fireworks today because of the rain. Hope you have a great Fourth if you’re American, and otherwise have a great weekend.