from the beefsteak plants. i picked about a
dozen yesterday and had my first toasted tomato
sandwich.

the cherry tomatoes have three red-orange
tomatoes on them. between two plants. that's
just odd here. usually they are loaded and
ready a week or two before the beefsteaks.

yesterday i finally got the garlic out of
the ground, with the rains we've had the past
few weeks it's just been too wet and yesterday
wasn't much better but at least i wasn't muddy.
after getting the garlic out of the ground i
still had so much dirt on them that i hosed them
off. this really was a mistake. after i
noticed that some of them were already starting
to get mold on them it's just not a good thing
to have them wet again.

so i had big box tops and extra towels to lay
them out to dry and rotated them a few times.
i'll be doing the same today.

as for the size of the garlic heads, most were
excellent, as i had planted the largest cloves
from the previous harvest. spacing them out a
bit more seemed to help too. it made it much
easier for weeding to have a little more room
in between the plants.

picked more green and wax beans the other day
and made a three bean salad (with onion).

finally checked the squash plants and saw some
already full sized fruits on them. moved a few
branches so they don't smother the nearby bush
and to keep them out of the sunflowers.

some of my first pea plantings that were eaten
by the groundhogs have sprung back and are now
flowering like they should have three weeks ago.
with all the rain and cooler weather perhaps
they will actually bear a crop. as some were
from my special select peas that i am trying to
increase my seed supplies this is good news.
haven't seen a groundhog in a few weeks now
*knocks on wood head*. the snap peas really did
not germinate well this season so a few of those
growing would be nice to see too. seems like i
had a hard time getting them going last year too.

other things are ready, but i'm not going
to be doing much other than some digging today
to get the garden around the garlic all turned and
the edge weeded so that the plants don't drop
seeds into the neighboring limestone pathway. if
i'm smart i'll do the edge weeding first as when
i get digging i tend to work until i can't do
much else for a while.


songbird

Derald wrote:

Despite a few unseasonably cool nights a week or so back, summer is
in full stride down here. Rained today. Mind you: It rained just
enough that I must spin-dry the laundry that was already on the line and
that's about it. Less than ½-inch on my scale.

we've hardly had to run the AC this summer, most often
we've had it on to dehumidify. i've been cold this week
a few times as we've made it down into the 40sF.

i did pick the first larger batch of tomatoes yesterday
and today will be putting some of them up. the only
reason we grew extra plants this year above eating them
fresh is so that we can put some up as we are low on
tomato chunks. plenty of green tomatoes out there so
we should eventually have another round, but i keep
hoping for more sunshine and heat to help things along.
today is starting cloudy and supposedly due to rain
again.

the ever bearing strawberries are flowering again
after their normal break from the first crop.


Most of the garden has finished up for this cycle and shall remain
in peanuts until the fall, although, of course, there will be early
"late" plantings of cowpeas and snap beans. Okra, eggplant, a
smattering of cowpeas (remaining primarily for seed and to benefit wasps
and ladybugs) are aboaut all that remain. With the garden "banked", so
to speak, more time is available for "side work" -- thank goodness, I
guess.

more truck parts on order?


The pine tree that I killed last year finally used up its reserves
and left us this spring. Already, some limbs threatening the pumphouse
must be removed. Have covered vulnerable areas of the pumphouse
(fiberglass) roof with metal but still.... At this rate, will have to
top the snag by summer's end. Plan to top another dead, RSN, because it
threatens the electric power and (Internet) cable drops. Man, it never
stops....

no, seems not, it's very hard to build a place
that needs very little maintenance. i just hope
to keep shifting things from "useless maintenance"
to more fruitful sorts.


from the beefsteak plants. i picked about a
dozen yesterday and had my first toasted tomato
sandwich.

As you know, DW&I don't grow many tomatoes; sometimes, none. This
spring's container-grown Beefsteak tomatoes finished up weeks ago, have
been pruned and are offering up some sizeable scions to take as
cuttings. Once they're rooted in pots, mamma plants are history.
February-March planted tomatoes are "late season" to me and I won't do
any more of those in containers. Say I. Again. I have two very late
planted tomatoes, direct-seeded in a bed, that are just beginning to
bloom but they're not likely to set fruit until September. Can't
remember whether they're Beefsteak or Homestead. This time of year,
with plants as young as these, it doesn't matter.

i'm digging and sifting through some
containers i used to sprout tulip seeds. the
last four large ones will be interesting to get
through they are stuffed in the bottom with
gravel and empty plastic jugs. i was hoping
that they would not be quite so heavy, but i
think the end effect was a wash. just have to
find a large enough box top to use on the
desk so it won't scratch the surface.

we had no BER this year on any of the tomatoes
i've picked. only one was dragging in the dirt
long enough for the worms to get at it and do a
little damage.

i'm surprised to see the peas bouncing back
the way they've been. i've never had a pea crop
that made it through July that was worth much
of anything.


snip

yesterday i finally got the garlic out of
the ground,

I think I'm good for one or two more years before concluding garlic
not to be worth its garden space here. I think I had better success
with the Inchilium red than with the Ajo rojo but will try each once
more.

Ajo rojo was very colorful, i'll probably try
a few cloves again this coming year to see if it
will acclimate and improve, but not too many.



snip

picked more green and wax beans the other day
and made a three bean salad (with onion).

I began picking green beans in early May; the last of them finished
up a couple of weeks ago but the plants are still in the bed. Too early
in the summer to plant mo Fungus'll get'em, if the cutworms and
grasshoppers don't. Can plant more "early" (as in short-season) beans
when weather moderates late summer/early fall. Tried "Contender" beans
for the first time this spring. They produce really quickly but are a
bit short on flavor. I probably won't grow them again in the spring but
they're likely to be good for fall planting when one is anticipating the
onset of cooler temps but can't predict when.

i ended up pulling several beans plants out that
were not like the other surrounding beans, the
young pods were edible and ok, but not as good as
the surrounding plants. likely cross breeds from
the previous season. the older pods were too
tough and like chewing on cardboard for all the
flavor they had. with the cool weather the rest
of the beans are still doing ok.


finally checked the squash plants and saw some
already full sized fruits on them. moved a few
branches so they don't smother the nearby bush
and to keep them out of the sunflowers.

Cukes are long gone but a fresh planting of yellow squash is just
beginning to produce. I try to keep the cukes hanging on until the
native partridge peas (bumblebees and other bees) and native asters
(bees, wasps, other stuff) begin blooming. Cucurbits can be a challenge
during the summertime down he They are prey to all manner of mildew
and funguses because of the constant humidty and to a small moth larva
that penetrates the fruit and requires virtually daily sprayings of Bt
to control. Vine borers are not much of a factor in small scale
plantings such as mine but a kind of small black beetle sometimes enters
the stems at ground level. Don't know what they are. Don't care enough
about the squash to kill the cute little *******s and, besides, they
usually appear late enough in the year that DW already has jall the
squash that we can handle in the freezer.

Ma doesn't like cucumbers enough for us to grow
them again here, so we've put that space into squash
plants. i'm hoping the other plants are melons but
no fruit has set of yet for me to know. plenty of
flowers...

i'm not seeing little black beetles that bore here
so i'll knock on wood and hope they don't show up.


some of my first pea plantings that were eaten
by the groundhogs have sprung back and are now
flowering like they should have three weeks ago.

The only garden peas I grow are "little marvel" and they're not
very tolerant of heat. Most years, they're done by mid-May, at the
latest. Sometimes, I can plant more in September but most years cannot
until October. I notice that in fall, 2012, I planted peas on 23
October and in 2013, 05 November. I may be the only guy in the NG who
measures soil temp to make sure it's _cool_ enough.

probably.


snip

other things are ready, but i'm not going
to be doing much other than some digging today
to get the garden around the garlic all turned

If it weren't necessary every third year, or so, to remove tree
roots, I don't think I'd dig the beds, at all. Assuming that one starts
with decently prepared soil, which I know you may not be doing because
you're on a rescue mission, digging is just too destructive. As it is,
I "dig" the first pass (say, the top six inches) with my fingers in
order to set aside insects' eggs and juvenile instars, earthworms, and
other found objects.

oh yeah, the less digging i have to do the
better by far, but i don't have enough materials
always on hand to smother/mulch gardens as they
become available. right now i'm out of everything
except for a few small newspapers. not many
gardens here i can use my fingers in down beyond
a quarter inch without breaking them. for those i
have a dull knife to get the weeds that won't come
out easily.

hard to imagine that in about four more weeks
we'll likely start getting frosts again. this
season is going by very quickly.

if i can get that garden turned in the next few
days then i can probably try to plant it with peas
for a fall crop.


songbird

it is amazing how some things can change.
the tomato crop looked really good on the
9th, picked about 20lbs on the 16th and
they were great.

from the distance everything kept looking
great and i was due to pick and process
again several days ago except almost the
entire crop was rotting on the vine. after
looking at the on-line resources it seems
to be buckeye rot but they say it affects
tomatoes from contact with the ground and
most of these are not in contact with the
ground at all.

neither of us has seen this rot before
and it isn't like the other spots of rot that
am familiar with where i can cut the spot
away and leave the rest of the fruit to be
used. it seems to affect the whole fruit
rapidly. i can smell it being off even after
cutting away the obvious rotten part and some
significant margin besides.

i'm suspecting that the cold snap of
several weeks ago is the likely culprit for
setting things up so badly. all plants in
several different areas (with different
soils) are affected. many have now lost most
of their leaves (but the stems are still
green and look healthy). i'm hoping the
newer green fruits will come through.

the other day i picked about 50lbs and
ended up burying about half that as rotten.
today i picked about 60lbs and all but
10lbs were rotten. i still have more to
pick tomorrow.

the cherry tomatoes seem to be ok for now
and are coming along well.


songbird