Late Fall Harvest

For a garden blog I haven't been talking much about the garden, have I? Here is a bit about what is going on:

This is the broccoli on November 15:
I had 13 broccoli plants this year (14 originally, one didn't make it). I bought them at Lowes in Lexington, VA, because my local greenhouse was sold out by the time I got to them. I really wasn't sure I was going to get broccoli this year because by the middle of October they were but wee little broccoli wannabes. When I picked the first batch at the beginning of December they were huge:I got a great Fall broccoli crop! A little wormy, but I took care of them (for the most part. I hope). You can see the size here, my gloved hand is at the left: A week after I picked the first snow-covered batch we were having a cold and windy spell and I decided to pick the rest before the wind got to it. It has all been blanched and frozen now.

I also cut into the single Australian Butter squash I got, and 'Butter' is the perfect word to describe the flavor. Fantastic! I will grow these again:

1/3 of this squash went into this apple and cranberry dish for Thanksgiving:The remaining 2/3 was cooked (too much, I think) and frozen. This is a great squash.

My remaining carrots and parsnips are still in the ground. I covered them over with the now-infamous bags of leaves to try to insulate them some. Next warmish spell I'll try to dig them up. The cabbages, I fear, are toast. Just got them in too late.

End of Summer Review

Whew! What a year!! I can’t believe it is getting cold already. The leaves are just starting to turn down here, I’m hoping it will be a colorful autumn. I’m hoping someone else finds it helpful and informative, too. Please note that I’m also going through my seed stash and I will be doing a Destash list shortly. Look for it, I’ll be happy to send anything anywhere.

Peppers: Terrible year for peppers. I really only got Hungarian wax peppers to ripen, everything else was a bust.

Cucumbers: Still loving my Boothby’s Blonde. I’m out of cuke seeds now, though, so I may try another variety next year.

Melons: I successfully grew two different types of melons this year but, you know, we just didn’t eat them. Note to Self: dedicate the space next year to something else.

Winter Squash: Pumpkins did well, the Australian Butter did, too, but everything else got got by the vine borers.

Summer Squash: Yanoo, it has gotten to be a joke about how zuchinni takes over the garden and you get swamped by them. I got a grand total of 2 zuch this year. Two. Dos. I did get a nice selection of Reve Scaloppini, though, and some croocknecks.

Beans: Provider is still my go-to bush bean. Really happy with the Triofono Violetto purple pole bean, nice and tasty. The Molly Frazier’s White Cutshort was very prolific and I’m happy with it, too. Not sure what I’m going to do next year, I might try something entirely different. I also want to plant more drying beans and some ‘cowpeas.’

Sweet Potatoes: Oh, dear. I planted about 12 slips, the deer ate them. 2 came back and did very well, vine-wise. Then, the guy we hired to do bobcat work buried them in 8” of dirt. I thought it was a total loss, but the vines started growing again. I’m letting them go for another week or so to mark the spots I need to dig.

Tomatoes: This is the long part, so I’m adding it at the end.

Hanging Tomatoes: total bust. They started out so well, I don’t know what happened? I think we will try again next year, maybe with peppers or something else. I would rather put flower baskets in their place, but I think we should try again with veggies, just one more go.

Keeper varieties: these are varieties I have grown before and know I like, and will grow again: Brandywine, Sungold (cherry), Mortgage Lifter, Cherokee Purple, Aunt Ruby’s German Green.

New varieties and my feelings about them:

Ceylon (cherry): Very prolific. Nice fruit, nice size, but I don’t think I’ll grow it again. Tasty, though. I’d recommend it, but it isn’t what I’m looking for.

Tlacolula: Interesting shape, would be a good stuffer, but probably won’t grow it again.

Kellogg’s Breakfast: Terrific, huge yellow/orange fruit, great taste. I will grow this again.

Fancy Hill: I only got one ripe fruit off this plant so I really can’t comment.

Japanese Triefel: Mine didn’t produce much, but the taste was terrific.

Amish Paste: Nice, basic past tomato. Large fruit, nice taste. I will grow this again.

Purple Russian (paste): I truly think that the only way I would grow this tomato again is if it were the last tomato on earth. It was too sweet for my tastes, the bottom was overripe by the time the top ripened, and it cracked a lot. If you like sweet tomatoes, this one is for you.

I have some fall crops in now. Some are a total failure: peas, beets, the cold weather greens didn’t come up, neither did the turnips. Broccoli, I might not get before the cold really hits. Same with cabbage. The Chinese cabbage I planted is doing OK.

End of July Review and Notes To Self

I had meant to post this at the beginning of August, but I forgot and then I didn’t have time and then…well, you know. So here is my Spring/mid Summer roundup:

Peas: I pulled these SPRING pea vines on 8/2. Really happy with the Little Marvel pea. I have no idea if it is because of weather or the variety, but it was still producing when I pulled the vines! Shocking. Note to self: plant this variety next year, too.

Garlic: I already posted about the garlic harvest. However, as some of you know I’m keeping tabs on $$ when it comes to this garden with the hopes of seeing how much $$ I put in vs. how much I will get out. Here is a tidbit: if I had purchased the 156 heads of garlic at the grocery store through the year, it would have cost me $117.

Leeks: I am happy….but. I overestimated my leek needs and while they were staggering in for a while, they started staggering in really quickly and then I couldn’t keep up. I pulled all the rest today and only 7 were salvageable (they got hit by the onion maggot, and if I had pulled them at the beginning of August they probably would have been fine). Note to self: try to find two varieties next year, an early and a late, and try to find 2-3 people to share them with so I don’t have soooo many leeks all at the same time.

Potatoes: Note to self: if you think you have enough straw/hay on top of the potatoes to keep the sun off them, you don’t. Put another few inches on. About 1/4 of my fingerling potatoes had green spots on them. The red potatoes did well, even though the plants looked like hell. I got 3:1 out for both of these.

Golds did VERY well, I think I got 6:1 out of these. Note to self: plant more golds next year.

Carrots/Lettuce/Radishes: I really think I’m going to grow the Baby Ball/Thumbelina varieties almost exclusively from now on. They’re small, quick, easy to pull, easy to know when to pull, and cute….and I’m guessing easy to can. This year I don’t have too many carrots coming up in the first batch but I was overrun with lettuce and radishes. I usually mix the seeds together, then sew them. Note to self: keep the seeds separate and sew them separately in the same row to make sure I get enough carrot seed sewn.

I did pull and dig some yellow carrots, they looked nice, very carrot-like for our dense soil.

Pole Beans: really happy with both that I put in this year, but the Molly Frazier is going like gangbusters. I emailed the company (Baker Creek) to ask if ‘short vines’ meant 12 feet, and they said no. I emailed them pictures of the beans (not sure if they qualify as ‘cutshort’). It may be the wrong bean, it may be the wrong description.

Bush Beans: I like the Burpee Provider variety again, but something is nibbling on them a lot. Same with the Roma that Barbara gave me. Not slugs, though, these are small fuzzy green worms. The critters don’t get the pole beans as much.

Tomatoes: Happy with: Sun Gold (of course), Ceylon (very nice), and the other varieties I’ve grown before (Brandywine, Cherokee Purple, Mortgage Lifter, Aunt Ruby’s). DO NOT LIKE the Purple Russian paste (sweet, splits easily, the bottom starts to turn to mush before the top is ripe!). Still waiting on most others.

Squash: Really like the Reve Scaloppini, but I have yet to see a zucchini. The yellow crookneck and the Zephyr are doing so-so. Not a good year for summer squash?

Winter squash is doing really well and the vines are rooting along the way, hallelujah. Several vines are 20’ long already, and I have at least 8-10 winter squash on them that I’ve noticed. I have lost a couple to vine borers, and we do have a couple small infestations of squash bugs.

Okra: Nice. Note to self: need more than 4 plants.

Peppers: Really bad year for peppers, and everyone is saying this. Of the 13 plants I have more than half have yet to even show a bloom, much less an actual pepper. Many are dropping leaves every time you look at them funny. But a few plants are doing really well. Go figure.

Cukes: So far, so so. I really like the Boothby’s Blonde.

Melons: I have 3 of the Prescott melons and 5 of the Haogen melons. I watch them and drool a little. I can’t wait.

Onions: did surprisingly well. I think I planted 90 something and I got out 76. Some of them were tiny, but still. And I got some that I had originally started from seed in January, which really shocked me. They weren’t hit by the onion maggot, either, I got them out early enough.

Squash I Have Known

I have several winter squash growing this year. Last year, vine borers killed all my vines. This year, I think I've gotten to most of them WITH A BIG, POINTY KNIFE before they could get to me.

This is a triamble, sometimes called a shamrock, due to the three lobes.
I believe this is on the pumpkin vine I have. The baby on the left didn't make it.
I have no idea what this is. Some of the seed I planted came from a friend, and I haven't looked at the packets again recently to refresh my memory.
This is the one I've really been looking forward to: Guatamalan Blue Banana squash!
I *think* this is an Australian Butter, but it *may* be a variety called Galeaux d'Eysines.

Two Totally Terriffic Tips

Neither one are from me. Sorry.

First, check out this post about pumpkin growing. I *cannot* believe the difference.

Second, while looking for information on vine borers, I found a great tip about warding off downy mildew. It seems that spraying the leaves of the plants with a dilute kelp seaweed solution will keep downy mildew away. So far, it has worked for me and I'm thrilled, as I lost all my summer squash plants last year to downy mildew. I do have some leaves that have it and I'm spraying them to see if it will actually get rid of it, too. Stay tuned!

Various pictures

I'm about a week behind, but here are some pictures of the semi-recent garden activities....I hope to post more later....but we'll see. I've got blueberries and blackberries to pick, beans and peas to pick, weeding to do, lettuce to gather, squash bug eggs to destroy, dinner to make....and after all that it seems to be 9:30 already and I'm beat!!

A gallon bag of raspberries, scavenged from up the road:
Reve Scallopini squash baby:


Okra blossom:
Lettuce Christmas trees. I forget what variety this is, but I let it bolt because it is so pretty:

Monthly Update 9/21/08

Again, not keeping up with this as much as I’d like. I somewhat got derailed when Max had his medical emergency and never got back on track (most recent Max update on my other blog). It wasn’t just this, though, I got off track with the garden, too. I’m going to be playing catch up here over the next couple weeks with a bunch of my infamous So, what do you do with….? series, and I will do a couple bits on flowering things from the summer.

Tomatoes are starting to wind down. There are still a LOT of fruits on the vines, but they are taking a long time to ripen. Same with the peppers.

Cucumbers are done, as are the beans. Not at all thrilled with the beans I grew this year. The Roc d’Or yellow beans were terrible, did not like them at all. And they were spotty and bug-chewed very badly, so I pulled the plants and I’m going to burn them (as opposed to putting them in the compost bin, since they’re diseased or something). The Kentucky Wonder pole beans were very tasty raw, but cooked they were mushy and tasteless. I may grow some next year, but only for eating raw. Otherwise, I’m in the market for a couple new varieties of beans.

I started some fall crops, I have broccoli in and just planted some spinach seedlings. I planted some fall radishes that are pink on the inside, white skins. They’re called watermelon radishes. I also put in some more beets, but I may not get any out before it turns really cold.

The parsnips are still in the ground, I did pull the 5 smallest ones to see how they’re doing. They were very nice, smelled wonderful. I hope to get a good batch out, and will probably grow them again next year.

I have 2 orange pumpkins and one winter squash of the Triamble variety.

Now is the time to be planting garlic, but we aren’t quite yet. No place at the moment. I may put them where the beans were this year and between the broccoli. We’ll see.

Weekly Veggie Patch Update 5/26/08

Clear weather the past few days, finally. It’s heating up, too, which should make the tomatoes and peppers happy. I have had a lot to do and no time to do it due to the weather, so OF COURSE it clears and warms up….the weekend I have to work. And not feel well, so I got one whole hour of work done all of Saturday.

I pulled my first radish this week, still a little small but I had to do something to make me feel like this was all worth it. And the little radish was perfect and round and dark pink and had a real bite to it. I’ve pulled more since, maybe about a quarter of what’s there. I’m seeing few carrots, though. A bit bummed about that. And I have no idea if and parsnips are coming up or not because I don't know what they look like.

I did my annual herb-shopping trip to Ashcombe’s on Wednesday morning. I had to drop Matt off at Gettysburg so he could pick up his new work van (at 7:15 A-freaking-M), and figured, well I’m halfway to Ashcombe’s I might as well just go. So I did, got there just before they opened at 8 and wandered with my cappuccino and looked at roses outside until they actually opened the doors.

I grabbed up 3 basils, 3 thymes, a culinary sage, a white (smudging) sage, 2 bok choys, 2 flat-leaf parsley, 2 oreganos, 2 borage (for the veggie patch, to bring in bees), a patchouli, a marjoram, and 1 other thing that I can’t remember now for the life of me. I also picked up two huge bunches of asparagus crowns 50% off, 2 African violet pots, a pack of turnip green seeds for a coworker, some strawberries, and 3 coleus. I had wanted to get some lemon grass, dill, and other basils but they didn’t have them out.

I planted the bok choys and the borages in the veggie patch. I also planted more bush and pole beans. The spinach bed needs weeded badly. Something (birds, I think) ate 2 out of 3 of the melon seedlings, so I replanted them and put some floating row cover over them. Kale and heading lettuce is doing well. I think one, maybe both, of the peppers I started from seed may bite it. If so, I can use that space for more bush beans.

But, I did get most of the mounds in place for the squash and got them planted after I got home from work on Sunday. Pumpkins, too. Matt is going to dig two trenches for me so I can plant the asparagus. I can also plant some things down the middle of the rows for a few years, like beets or onions, so that’s good.