Saturday, July 12, 2008

Harvest Time!

Well, the time has finally come that we are pulling a substantial amount of veggies out of the garden. Zucchini and squash are flooding the kitchen, along with cabbage and cucumbers. We literally have a pile of the stuff on the counter from tonights harvest.The onions are doing really well, I pulled a few of them tonite just because. Some of them are still growing, but most will be ready to harvest soon. I pulled a carrot out of unending curiosity and guess what, it looked like a carrot. Since it was orange, I decided to give it a taste and ii even tasted like a carrot. Hot Damn!!! Spinach went to crap, along with all the lettuce due to heat, most of it started to bolt, despite being bolt resistant. Marigolds and nostriums that we planted earlier are blooming in profusion throughout the garden. Mighty pretty if I might say so! Pulled out most of the broccoli, except the ones that were still putting off side shoots. And my two cucumber plants will probably take over most of the fallow lettuce rows.

Squash, ah squash. As seen from the photos, the squash and zucchini are growing just fine! One plant has started to collapse, so I need to keep an eye on it to make sure nothing weird going on. Bell peppers are starting to be harvested, the first green of the year came off the plant tonight, with more coming soon. The purple and yellow peppers are starting to bloom and set fruit. The tomatoes are seem to be going to total crap. I don't get it, they just start wilting, while the lower leaves turn yellow and then black. And it's rapidly spreading throughout the whole planting. Oh.... how I want a fresh BLT. Cat's herbs are doing well, along with a few sunflowers we planted. We're hoping to plant alot more next year.

My corn is doing well, much to my satisfaction. They could be doing better because light issues. I have 3 huge tulip poplars blocking my morning sun that will be disappearing this fall, before we put in the cover crop, hopefully. I say that because these trees are something like 5 ft in diameter, so I'm a little hesitant of dropping a tree that big, much less three. Luckily the house is nowhere near them, so there is at least that. I don't really know what I'm going to do with that much poplar, it's not that great of a wood for the wood stove.. So despite being in the throes of a tomato meltdown, the garden is still kickin right along. Pullin lots of weeds and makin lots of compost for next year. Hope fully the plans to put in a few raised beds will begin soon.

2 comments:

Feather Chucker said...

I wish I could grow some vegetables where I live, we can't even seem to get flowers to grow. The only thing that's surviving is snap dragons. There's voles that keep eating the plants, also if I leave the gate open rabbits have their fill. You might have voles eating the roots of the tomato plants. If you rip them up see if the roots are almost gone. That might be why one plant is falling over as well.

Ryan said...

Nothing quite like the harvest. Our beans are just starting - should have enough to can a few in a couple days. And the corn has dwarfed everything else. I'm still another week or two from the broccoli. No squash to overrun my garden, but the pumpkins are taking their place.