The  Harvest Continues!

2 lbs of lettuce, 3 lbs of snap peas, 1/2 lb of broccoli and 2 cups of raspberries... YUM!

Indigo Rose Tomatoes have set....          


With all the rain and warm temperatures that we have had, the garden is growing like gangbusters!  We have small tomatoes developing.  They are the Indigo Rose variety... a new variety of tomato developed at Oregon State University.  

From Wikipedia:  Blue tomatoes are tomatoes that have been bred to produce high levels of anthocyanin, a pigment responsible for the blue and purple color of many fruits including blueberries, blackberries and chokeberries. Anthocyanin has been identified to possess antioxidant properties.

Researchers at Oregon State University have produced blue in tomatoes using conventional breeding techniques, cross-pollinating domestic tomatoes with wild varieties that exhibit the "Anthocyanin fruit" (Aft) gene.^[1] As of the 2012 growing season, Oregon State University developed blue tomato seeds became commercially available under the name "Indigo Rose Tomato." The blue color is produced on the outside of the tomato where the fruit is exposed to direct sunlight. The shaded side of the fruit is green when unripe, red when ripe, and the inside is red or deep pink. The tomatoes are small, about 2 inches across, round, and grow in clusters of 6 to 8. Flavor is described as slightly acidic. The vines are said to be indeterminate but compact, and disease resistant.

In the above picture, you can see the squash plants have increased dramatically in size.  That one row of smaller plants are cantaloupe... just not thriving like the squash.   The picture below shows we even have some small squashes developing on the Ronde De Nice variety.  

I have several crops of lettuces that are ready and almost ready!  Radishes are again ready to pull.  

We had some wind during a rainstorm the other night and it kind of tossed around the Cascdadia Snap Pea plants, but they don't seem to be damaged... just toppled over a bit.  And look at the peas... I will pick some tomorrow!!!

I thinned the carrots to be about 1" apart.  That is the carrots... those little wispy looking things in the foreground of the picture below.  The tall plant in the back is tomatillo... Looking verrrry healthy!

Potatoes are almost ready to be hilled up again!  Walla Walla Onions in the foreground seem to be doing OK.

I noticed that one of the raspberry plants that was doing so well has apparently died!  What a shock. The last  time I looked, nine out of the twelve raspberry canes I had planted were doing extraordinarily well...  the leaves were green and healthy!  Now the leaves on one of the canes have shriveled and turned black.  I do not know what has caused this.

That is it for today!

Lettuce and radishes                

We harvested another three heads of leaf lettuce (about 1 pound) and another bunch of radishes.  

June 20...Hilling up Potatoes............&  Peppers, Tomatoes and Tomatillos are Blooming!               

Warm weather has arrived.  We are forcasted for 90+ degree days.  Those of you who know me, please don't laugh... I realize that 90+ degrees is nothing... but it is something for Vermont!

The potatoes are about 10 inches tall.  It is slightly past time to hill them up.  As the potatoes stems and leaves grow, it is important to "hill up" the soil around them.  That way, the potato plants will develop new potatoes all the way up the stem (as long as it is covered with enough soil).  In addition, developing potatoes shouldn't be exposed to sunlight or their skin will turn green with solanine.  Solanine is poisonous.  So you want to be sure that your developing potatoes are covered with soil!

Here is a picture of the row of potatoes before hilling up.

Here is a picture after hilling up...

Everything in the garden is growing pretty good now.  The Peppers, Tomatoes and Tomatillos are blooming.  

Here is one of the Anaheim chile pepper plants in bloom.  You can see some tiny little peppers developing.

Tomato plant in bloom

  

Tomatillo plant in bloom

A close-up of the tomatillo flower.

More radishes      

Another bunch of radishes harvested!

  

Yummy lettuce!        

I pulled five small heads of lettuce.   Woo Hoo!  Salads for the next several days!  I also pulled the last of the radishes that were planted on April 21st.  It occurs to me that I should keep track of how much produce I harvest.  I weighed the lettuce.  It was about 1 pound.  Total radishes so far= 1 pound.

Garden activities for the last couple of days include weeding and watching things grow!  We had rain yesterday and last night... it is amazing how the rain makes things grow better than simply watering from a hose!

Just Keeping Up!      

Everything is growing pretty well!  The potatoes are up!   

The carrots I planted about a week ago are up... as are a few of the rutabagas.

The Cascadia Snap Peas are blooming!

 The lettuce is ready... I can start harvesting the baby leaves any time.

June 1...                 

I planted the last of the lettuce and kale seedlings that I had started.  I tucked them in between some of the other rows... i.e. in the strawberry bed.  The lettuce will be long harvested before the strawberry plants get very big.

Some of the strawberries are starting to leaf out!

Some of the raspberry plants are starting to leaf out!

In general the garden looks good!

And... I harvested the first radishes of the year!  Woo Hoo!

May 29... squash, melons and cucumbers planted...      

No more room at the inn!  I had all these squash, melon and cucumber seedlings and no place left to plant them!  What to do.... what to do....!

The solution became apparent as I had used most of the soil from that large pile to fill the wooden framed garden beds, but there was still some soil left over and a large bare spot in the middle of the back yard where the pile of soil had been.  I had kind of over planned... planned to grow more vegetables than I actually had space for in those frames!  So after some consideration, I decided to double dig the packed soil in the bare spot and then rake it into rows and use that for our squash, melons and cucumbers.


It was a bigger job than it seemed.  The bare spot had been used in the past as a location to burn debris.  As I dug and raked I uncovered lots and lots of rusty nails and screws, old brass hinges and broken panes of glass, bricks and tile fragments and lots of unidentifiable miscellaneous junk! 


I planted the seedlings about 30" apart.  (Some ended up 24" apart.) 


Here is what the beds and rows looked like when I was finished planting.

May 28... strawberries are planted        

They arrived looking like a wad of stems and roots.... 25 bundled together with a rubber band.  I followed the packaged directions... soaked them in a bucket of water... while I amended the soil with compost and added 10-10-10- fertilizer.  


I planted the strawberries 18" apart and just so the roots were covered.  I was careful not to bury the crown of the plant, as thay would  kill it.  


Here is a picture of one of the strawberries... They look like little sticks!   They will be leafing out soon!

Memorial Day Weekend - May 27

May 27... 


I got the tomatoes and peppers planted!  


I have devoted two of the 4' x 8' beds to tomatoes and peppers!  I have Sweet Million Cherry tomato, Indigo Blue tomato and Early Girl tomatoes.  The peppers are Garden Salsa, Ancho, Coyame Jalapeno and Bell. 


I amended the beds with a bag of compost and then added some 16-16-16 slow release fertilizer to the soil.  I planted the tomatoes 3 feet apart, and fairly deeply... up to their first set of true leaves.  I planted the peppers, 18" apart and so that the garden soil is at the same level as the soil in their little individual peat pots.  


In another one of the 4' x 8' beds I  planted three tomatillo plants that I started indoors.  I bought the seeds from Nichols Garden Seeds.  They had Tomatillo (regular) and Purple Tomatillo and Pineapple Tomatillo.   I bought all three varieties and planted seedlings of each.   Then, to fill out that bed, I seeded a row each of carrots and rutabagas.


Here is a picture of the tomato and pepper plants.