First off, can anyone help me identify if the photo below this is a zucchini plant? I made a mound of compost and then planted zucchini seeds in it. When they started to germinate I realized that I have some kind of squash or melon seeds in my composter and they started to germinate as well. I think I have thinned the right ones but I have no clue what a small zucchini plant should look like.
As sides from my zucchini mix up things are going well. The peas have started to form baby peas which is exciting, I have never eaten a fresh peas before. The beans have climbed about 2 feet up the trellis so I suspect they should start leafing out along the tendrils soon. My potatoes are getting massive, almost 3 feet high!
I have started to blanch my celery plants, I have read conflicting things on weather you should blanch celery or not but I am going to go ahead and try. My first through was to use PVC waste pipe but I could not find any that was wide enough. I ended up using 1 gallon perennial containers with the bottom cut out of them, they seem to do the trick. They seem a little small so I think I will keep a look out for larger containers but for the time being they do the job.
The heirloom tomatoes all have 3 clusters of flowers per plant and I am patiently wait for the kings of the garden to form and ripen. The photo below of the tomato blossom has to be the largest tomato blossom I have ever seen, they are larger then a quarter. The plant is the Hillbilly Potato Loaf tomato, I think I bought these seed last year just because of the name and it turned out to be a very nice tomato.
Now for the failures, my butter crunch lettuce is in the composter. It formed lettuce that looked more like romaine and only one plant formed a butter crunch head about the size of an onion. I think this was caused by using lettuce grown in cell packs because every lettuce that I planted from transplants did poorly well the lettuce that I seeded in the ground grew get. This fall on, I will only grow lettuce from seed not from the nursery.
My beets still have leaf miner, it doesn't seem to be as bad as it was but they are still munching away. This probably would not be the case if I keeped up my spraying schedule, shoulda woulda coulda I guess. I did a posting on garden web and was told that leaf miner should not kill the beets and that it would be okay to just leave them be. That is what I am going to do and hopefully still harvest some kind of beets.
I think I will end on a lighter note by protesting my jealousy of all the zone 7-9ers that are beginning to harvest many things. Going though all these harvest posts makes me want to move to a warmer climate. I think I would kill for a warm tomato right off the vine right about now. With all the magazines starting to publish recipes for things like cucumber gazpacho, tomato watermelon & feta salad, pork tenderloin with charred tomato salsa and so on doesn't help. That made you hungry didn't it?
First off, can anyone help me identify if the photo below this is a zucchini plant? I made a mound of compost and then planted zucchini seeds in it. When they started to germinate I realized that I have some kind of squash or melon seeds in my composter and they started to germinate as well. I think I have thinned the right ones but I have no clue what a small zucchini plant should look like.
As sides from my zucchini mix up things are going well. The peas have started to form baby peas which is exciting, I have never eaten a fresh peas before. The beans have climbed about 2 feet up the trellis so I suspect they should start leafing out along the tendrils soon. My potatoes are getting massive, almost 3 feet high!
I have started to blanch my celery plants, I have read conflicting things on weather you should blanch celery or not but I am going to go ahead and try. My first through was to use PVC waste pipe but I could not find any that was wide enough. I ended up using 1 gallon perennial containers with the bottom cut out of them, they seem to do the trick. They seem a little small so I think I will keep a look out for larger containers but for the time being they do the job.
The heirloom tomatoes all have 3 clusters of flowers per plant and I am patiently wait for the kings of the garden to form and ripen. The photo below of the tomato blossom has to be the largest tomato blossom I have ever seen, they are larger then a quarter. The plant is the Hillbilly Potato Loaf tomato, I think I bought these seed last year just because of the name and it turned out to be a very nice tomato.
Now for the failures, my butter crunch lettuce is in the composter. It formed lettuce that looked more like romaine and only one plant formed a butter crunch head about the size of an onion. I think this was caused by using lettuce grown in cell packs because every lettuce that I planted from transplants did poorly well the lettuce that I seeded in the ground grew get. This fall on, I will only grow lettuce from seed not from the nursery.
My beets still have leaf miner, it doesn't seem to be as bad as it was but they are still munching away. This probably would not be the case if I keeped up my spraying schedule, shoulda woulda coulda I guess. I did a posting on garden web and was told that leaf miner should not kill the beets and that it would be okay to just leave them be. That is what I am going to do and hopefully still harvest some kind of beets.
I think I will end on a lighter note by protesting my jealousy of all the zone 7-9ers that are beginning to harvest many things. Going though all these harvest posts makes me want to move to a warmer climate. I think I would kill for a warm tomato right off the vine right about now. With all the magazines starting to publish recipes for things like cucumber gazpacho, tomato watermelon & feta salad, pork tenderloin with charred tomato salsa and so on doesn't help. That made you hungry didn't it?
Great looking garden!
ReplyDeleteDan, your garden is looking good. I unfortunately can't help with the identification, but did want to chime in that I too am jealous of the folks in warmer climates. Not the 7-9 zones, I'm in 8b, and my clmiate's horrible for growing warm weather crops.
ReplyDeleteThe important zone distinction is the AHS one. I'm in zone 2 which means we get 7 or less days a year over 86 degrees. A budy of mine in Alabama gets over 50, hehe. That's the primary difference in growing seasons for warm weather crops. Of course she'd kill for one of my salads and I for her corn, hehe.
We all have our pros and cons I guess.
I think it is your zucchini, Dan
ReplyDeleteThe Garden looks really good.
It does a bit like zucchini... except my zucchini has started to flower when it gets to that size.. hm... your cabbage looks wonderful. i wonder when it will be ready for harvest!
ReplyDeleteHydrocult - thanks
ReplyDeleteSinfonian - yes the grass is always greener on the other side. I have not heard of AHS zones, I will have to look this up and see what mine is. We get a lot of hot weather from late spring until fall here. This years it doesn't seem to be the case so far.
Hendria - I sure hope it is zucchini
Dp Nguyen - From what I have read about cabbage if you plant it in the early spring you want to harvest smaller heads, before there is a lot of persistent heat and they will not store for long. If I was to plant cabbage in the late summer it can then be grown until the heads are very large, harvested after frost and will store well over the winter.