Harvest Monday

Today I have a gathering of harvest photos going back to mid August. Harvests have been good since my last post but they have started to wane now. Our first frost generally hits in mid October, at that point all I will have in the garden is rutabaga, celery and possible broccoli if it starts producing again. I'm wishing I put in more cool season crops at this point.

I have already started planning for next year, in particular about tomatoes. I planted two hybrid paste tomatoes and four heirloom tomatoes this year. The hybrids look great and are pumping out the fruit. The heirlooms on the other hand are covered in blight, even the fruit is covered on a few. This winter I am going to find a few hybrid slicing tomatoes to replace half the heirlooms. There has to be a hybrid tomato that tastes as good as an heirloom, so far I have looked at Pink Beauty F1 from Johnny's. Anyone have any suggestions for a good tasting and disease resistant F1?

Here are the photos in no particular order:

Tiger's Eye Beans. They have done well this year. I planted them

a few years ago and they hardly produced. This year I planted two

four foot rows and they produced almost a pound of dry beans.

 Crenshaw Lily F1. Smelled amazing but it was not

very sweet. I just don't think my yard can grow melons.

There is one more developing, hopefully it will be sweet.

Kellogg's Breakfast Tomato. Very large, sweet and productive.

There May Be Hope, After All!

It seems after thoroughly complaining about the garden last week it has now started to reap some rewards. Here are some noticeable improvements:

The first melon is developing. This is a Crenshaw Lilly F1.

 

The Numex Joe E Parker (Anaheim) have turned.   

This is the first time I have grown this particular   

Anaheim pepper, they seem smaller then usual.

 

The Dragon Tongue Beans are finally ready! I planted

them in late May....

 

The first Pumpkin, either a Flatso or Autumn Crown. 

I hope more set soon.

 

Here is the best improvment, the first tomato started

turning over the weekend and it was harvested today.

This is a Cherokee Purple.

Well I am at it, I'll group this post in with Harvest Monday. The shots below are harvests from Mid July until today:

Double Yield & Slicing Cucumbers.

Double Yield Cucumbers and Sweet Cherry Peppers.

The Peppers are not very good!

Dragon Tongue Beans, My favorite!

Numex Joe E Parker Anaheim & Ancho Peppers.  

Both will be dried for later use.

Cherokee Purple Tomatoes.

Double Yeild & Slicing Cucumbers and the first

Bellstar Tomato. They look promising, short plants,

heavy fruit set and they are good for paste and fresh eating.

Developed in Ontario too!

Tiger's Eye Beans. I harvested the first lot of them

last weekend. There is about the same amount still

on the plants now. They have done well this year.

The Garden in August

 
Here is the garden at present. As usual it is a solid mass of veggies this time of year. What is not common is the garden is still not very productive. In-fact this may be the worst year on record (still no tomatoes....). Likely it is due to the weather being below seasonal since the spring. So I will just take what I can this year and hope for a better yield next year. Here goes some individual photos of each bed:

Tomato & Pepper bed. The tomatoes are all green and the plants are starting to get blight. The peppers are turning colour at least.

Melons & Cucumbers. The cucumbers have been steadily producing for a few weeks. The melons are just starting to set a couple fruit now.

Rutabaga bed. I have always wanted to grow rutabaga so this year I tried out a small bed. There are about 6 of them in there. This is the type with yellow flesh and usually comes waxed in the grocery store. 

Bean bed. This year the dry beans have done well but all the other beans have not. My dragon tongue beans are just starting to produce now and the green pole beans never took hold after three planting attempts! The beans currently on the tepee are true red cranberry and trail of tears, both are dry beans. 

Broccoli bed. The broccoli has been good this year. I recently gave them a big hair cut. In a couple weeks I should be able to start harvesting again.

Late bean bed.  After harvesting the garlic I replanted the area with more dry beans. The area is kind of shady this time of year so they may or may not produce.

Pumpkin Bed. The pumpkins are just starting to produce. On the trellis are Autumn Crown (small long island cheese) and Flatso (small, orange and flattish).

Garden Harvests

Today I rounded up some harvest photos. Harvests have been slow this year. Currently the tomatoes are the size of ping-pong balls and I have one cucumber that is ready to harvest. Not to mention the slow growing pumpkins, melons, beans and peppers. It does look like things will pick in August at least. Here are some of this years harvest shots:

Here goes a quick update on the garden: Currently I have two empty beds after harvesting the garlic and clearing the lettuce out. When it cools off this weekend I am going to plant some fall crops. For starters I am going to plant some dry beans and a couple rows of parsnips. Then weather permitting I will start planting some greens/lettuce/kale again, this might have to wait until later in August if it stays hot. 

Happy Gardening Everyone,
Dan

The Garden in June

Today seemed like a good day to update on the veggie patch. The remaining warm season crops were planted between the end of May and Beginning of June.  The last few days all the beans started breaking ground. Things are progressing slowly this year! I do hope everything start growing a little faster soon. Here are a series of photos of the garden:

 Overview, June 14

 Tomatoes, Peppers & Crenshaw Melons under the trellis.

 Lettuce, Snap Peas, Chinese Celery & Cucumbers under the trellis.

 Rutabaga, for fall harvest.

 Peppers, Bush & Pole Beans.

 Broccoli.

 Beans & Garlic.

 Herbs, Tomatilloes, Rhubarb and Pumpkins under the trellis.

In other news: This month I also completed the last section of fence in the yard, all 36" of it. If you have been reading here for a while you may recall I started fencing the yard in the Fall of 2008. Section by section and with a little neglect mixed in it is finally complete!