Hey check out what I found on etsy! Super cool mini terrariums for your fridge or cubicle. I love love love mine!

Mini Magnetic Terrarium

http://www.etsy.com/listing/91385491/mini-magnetic-terrarium

This little terrarium has a strong magnet on the back that hugs metal surfaces- perfect for refrigerators, work spaces, anywhere you would like to

September garden highlights

September Garden Highlights.....

So many things going on with the garden in September.  Lots of tomatoes and squash and peppers!  

September 11

Indigo Rose tomatoes, Early Girl tomatoes, Sweet Million cherry tomatoes, Bennings Green Tint squash, Yellow Crookneck squash!

Early Girl Tomatoes on the vine...

Sweet Million Cherry Tomatoes on the vine...

September 15

The harvest!  Ready for some salsa????

September 18

Tenderbush green beans

Maxibel Bush French Filet Beans

Indigo Rose tomatoes

Sweet Million cherry tomatoes

Tomatillos

Purple tomatillos

Pac-Man broccoli

September 21

Pac-man broccoli and Early Girl tomatoes

More Peach Jam...                                

I wrote this one three weeks ago and for some reason did not hit the publish button! 

                   

What to do with the last of the peaches... more peach jam, of course!  It is really great on biscuits! 

Another Peach Pie...                                  

Getting down to the last of the fresh peaches from the tree in our yard.  I made another peach pie.  So yummy!

Cantaloupe are getting ripe                

Along with all the other things grown in the garden, one of the stars of the garden are the melons.  In this case, cantaloupe.  I don't know about you, but the sweet aroma and flavor of a fresh melon is one of the real pleasures of summer!  So, it was really a thrill to go out to the garden and find one that was ready to slip off the vine.  

Here it is... before we ate it!

The way to tell if cantaloupe are ready... other than looking at them...  is if they "slip" readily off the vine.  What that means is that as the cantaloupe ripens, the stem gradually lets go of the fruit, until... when you pick the fruit up and give a little twist, it just easily separates from the vine. 

Pineapple Tomatillos!!!                           

Tomatillos are ready.  I planted three varieties of tomatillos... traditional green Tomatillos, Purple tomatillos and Pineapple tomatillos.  I had never grown Pineapple tomatillos or Purple tomatillos.  The green tomatillos and Purple tomatillos are getting pretty large... filling the husks.  The pineapple tomatillos just were not getting big... I kept thinking they were not developing.... finally the husks were  turning papery and  they started falling off the plants.

Here is what they look like.

I picked quite a few... they practically fell off the plant into my hand.

Peeling back the papery husk...

Her's what they look like.  They are slightly sweet and they do have a flavor reminiscent of pineapple!

Peaches!!!                      

We do have a peach tree in our front yard.  Last summer it really didn't do too much.  I thought perhaps it needed pruning... it is at least 30 feet tall!  We never got around to pruning it and we haven't really paid much attention to it.  

Then I thought it must be time to mow the lawn and noticed some fallen peaches... looked up and saw some really nice peaches way up high!  Using the 10 foot ladder and one of my butterfly nets with a four foot handle, 4 dozen absolutely picture perfect peaches were harvested!  We are already enjoying them and have visions of peach pie and peach jam!

Cucumbers, Broccoli and Tomatoes

The cucumber crop is coming in as are the tomatoes!  A nice bunch of broccoli rounds out the harvest!

The Diva Cucumbers are a 2002 AAS winner (All-America Selections) and they are very tasty.  Nice cucumber flavor and not at all bitter.  It is an interesting variety.  Johnny's Selected Seeds in Maine says that the Diva produces all female flowers... and it does not require pollination.  It also says that the leaves are less bitter, so it is less attractive to cucumber beetles!  That is a good characteristic, in my opinion.  

All-America Selections Winners are new garden varieties of flowers vegetables and plants that have been tested and proven to be superior for home gardens. 

Harvested:

2 pounds broccoli

4 cucumbers

2 pounds tomatoes

Zucchetta Rampicante is ready!            

Also known as 'Tromboncino' squash, a Washington State University publication refers to it as the Garden Gorilla of Italy.  Once you have grown this, you know why.  This squash is amazing!  It grows vigorously and rampantly, with 10-foot long vines climbing all over the place.  The squash do well trellised and that is why I installed that fence panel as a trellis.  This is no weakling squash.  It is strong and it is prolific.  I grew it in Idaho... trained it up strings on a redwood privacy fence in the back yard.  It is very tasty.  The seeds are all in the bulbous end.  And, no... it is not a gourd!

It was 95 degrees yesterday and is 88 degrees today.  It was so hot and humid, all we could think of was where to hang out to keep cool!  I should have picked the squash yesterday... but I didn't.  Here is a picture of all the squash I picked today!  

It was time to hill up the potatoes again.  I added another six inches of soil.  

Harvested today:  

25 pounds of squash!  Yikes!!!

If you want to read more about Zucchetta Rampicante, here is the link to the Washington State University horticultural bulletin. 

http://agsyst.wsu.edu/zucchetta.html

Blueberries! And More Squash.........

There was one small blueberry bush in the backyard when we moved in.  It did not produce any fruit last summer.  However, we planted five brand new blueberry bushes last summer... 3 different horticultural varieties and apparently that is what the older bush needed... some pollination from another variety!  Because this year it has a few blueberries... Yum!

Lots more squash coming on.  The squash varieties are left to right: Ronde deNice (zucchini type) , Horn of Plenty (yellow crookneck) and Bennings Green Tint (pattypan).


Six pounds of squash
1 scant cup of blueberries

Indigo Rose Tomatoes are Ripe and... Whoa!  What happened to the beets!!???               

The Indigo Rose Tomatoes are ripe!  As you can see, they are definitely blue on the areas that are fully exposed to the sun.  The areas underneath the tomato... that would be shaded, develop the normal red color.  I realize they look very much like plums, but you can notice the tomato stem.

 I took them in and sliced them to have a look.  Red inside! So, how do they taste?  They taste like tomato!  They have a definite tomato flavor.  I ate them up.  And those blue pigments (anthocyanins)... great antioxidants... Wow!

Also, the Sweet Million cherry tomatoes are getting ripe.  We picked a few of them.  They did not make it back to the house!  So yummy!!!  Sweet Million is a very sweet cherry tomato. My favorite.

And what happened to the beets????  I walked out to the garden and looked around... where are the beets?  I think a deer ate them!  They ate some of the small emerging bean plants while they were at it!  

Wildlife eating gardens is always a possibility! That is enough for today. 

Glad we like squash....                   

The squash plants are doing quite well at the moment.  And three cucumbers were big enough to pick also.  

4 pounds of squash

3 cucumbers

More Squash, Broccoli, and Raspberries...                             

The raspberry crop is dwindling.  We are enjoying every morsel!  The squash crop is going strong and we even got some broccoli this morning!

Over the weekend, I replanted some green beans.  Something had dug up and eaten almost all the sprouting seeds!  Perhaps a chipmunk, squirrel, raccoon or skunk?  Not sure.  

We have not had rain for five days.  Possible thunderstorms were predicted for yesterday, but they never happened, so I watered early this morning.

3 pounds of squash
1 pound broccoli
3 cups of raspberries

Garden Overview                                 

Lots of squash to pick.  A few weeds to pull.  Here is a view of the garden from above.  Areas that are bare are where the lettuce, radishes and peas were.  They have been replanted with spinach, beans, beets and turnips.  The plants are just too small to see from this far up.

A quick survey of the pumpkins and cucumbers finds some developing fruit.

And jalapeno peppers are ready!

That is it for now!

Hot and Harvesting!                                

Just a short blog for today.  Yikes, the weather has been hot!  In the 90's.  That may not seem so hot, but the week started out on Monday with an 1" of rain.  Tuesday we had .9".  That means I don't have to run the sprinkler!  It also means that it is very humid!

The harvest continues.  Summer squash is coming pretty fast.  I think I may freeze some to use for cooking in the winter! The yellow squash is Horn of Plenty.  The round zucchini type is called Ronde deNice.  Both are very yummy!

Harvested: 7 pounds of squash

Tomato Cages, Trellises and Dry, Dry Weather                                      

Sunday, July 15th... 

Today I made tomato cages to support the tomato plants.  I bought a roll of 5' wide, concrete reinforcing wire at the local Home Depot for this purpose.  Concrete reinforcing wire is like heavy gauge wire rolled fencing.  Each grid in the wire is 6" square... which is important when using this for tomatoes... you have to be able to reach in to pick the tomatoes.   Using a pair of bolt cutters, I cut a 7 foot length of the concrete reinforcing wire.  

Then I overlapped the edges to make a cylinder and fastened it together with plastic zip ties.  

Each cage is approximately 24" in diameter.  

Then, I cut the very bottom ring off, leaving 6" wires all around the bottom to poke into the soil.  

Then I lifted the cylindrical cages up and carefully lowered them in place so that each tomato and tomatillo plant was contained in its own cage.  Then I pressed the cages firmly into place....  the six inch wires, sinking all the way into the soil  

Here's what they look like finished, and in the garden!  

The cucumbers and Zucchetta rampicante squash were rambling rampantly all over the place!  I bought a galvanized fence panel from the local Agway farm supply store and placed it in a nearly vertical position along the length of the row.  I supported it with three 2"x2" stakes which I pounded into the ground.  

So far, it is working well as a trellis.

This last week the weather has been hot and dry.  The lawn is starting to turn yellow and crispy and the garden looks wilted.  So, I got the sprinkler out and began to water. I fastened the sprinkler to the top of the trellis and was able to get about half the garden watered.  Then moved the sprinkler to the other side to water the rest!
  


 The peas that I planted in March and April were pretty much gone by.  The vines were looking kind of raggedy.  I picked the rest of the peas and pulled out the pea vines.   The lettuce is starting to bolt so I cut it all down.  I removed the tender leaves, washed them and drained them and then put them into a paper towel lined plastic bag and into the refrigerator.  They will make great salads for a while!

Friday through Sunday harvested
13 cups of raspberries
5 pounds of snap peas
3 pounds of lettuce
4 pounds of summer squash

Fourteen cups of Raspberries!......         

I picked fourteen cups of raspberries today!  I am making jam!

Raspberry Jam ( from The Ball Blue Book) makes 8 half-pints


1 quart of crushed fresh raspberries 
6 1/2 cups of sugar 
1 pouch of liquid pectin.  


Combine the crushed berries with the sugar in a large saucepan.  Bring to a boil and stir until all the sugar is dissolved.  Add the liquid pectin and boil... a rolling boil, stirring constantly for 1 minute.  Remove from heat, skim off and discard any foam, and ladle jam into prepared jars.  Wipe off top edge of jars and seal with prepared lids and rings and place in water bath.  Bring water bath to a rolling boil, cover with lid and process for 10 minutes.  Remove from boiling water bath and set on a towel or cutting board away from drafts.  After 24 hours check to see if the jars have sealed.


And there you have it!