July 2013 New England

NHGardener wrote:When the green beans come in, those will be every day meals, and then the tomatoes should start ripening and we'll eat those all the time. Seems we're eating in categories this year. Everything seems to ripen at a different time. After tomatoes are through we'll probably eat meals of potatoes.

*LOL* Category meals.

We've been eating bush beans for a few days now. The plants aren't as large & prolific at 9/sq as when I planted 1/ sq last year, but it's early yet so maybe they will catch up.

We're also still eating greens & lettuce daily and I still have some lettuce to harvest this weekend if it didn't bolt today. I pulled out the radish plants last weekend and we're still eating the pods. I harvested one of the hard neck garlics and it was so small that I'm waiting on the others. Strawberries are still blooming and producing here and there. The peppers are tall & flowering but no fruit yet. Onions all fell over. Basil is great. Cucs are flowering like crazy. Watermelon has trellis grabbage. Zuchs are tiny. Toms are green but producing like crazy.

So with everything that has been hitting my garden, I'm still feeling victorrrrious!!!  

CC

I'm glad I left up my shade cloth around my tomato plants.  I hear we might reach 100 degrees Friday in the interior and I'm in the interior near Sebago Lake.  Ugh.  I'll be out early to pick any tomatoes that are even starting to blush to bring them safely indoors to ripen.  I also want to check for hornworm.  Haven't seen any yet.
The good news was that we got 3/4 inch of rain this afternoon in a t-storm in a little over a half hour.

One of my eggplant flowers opened today!   It was soooo pretty!  I wanted to go out and get a pic and then another t-storm rolled through (we lost power for 1.5 hrs last night from the one we had yesterday). So, when I went out to look after the storm passed, it had closed.  Is this normal nite-nite eggpant flower behaviour & it will open again tomorrow or does this mean it's been pollinated already?

I wanted to let you all know that some my FL lettuce, Bijou, is getting sunburned at the edges.  I was told that that wouldn't happen.  Fortunately I also planted some in part shade and they are fine.  

Here's a photo of the sunburned ones in front to the right of the bolting but not bitter Grand Rapids, then beets, then Rainbow chard which I leave large enough to shade the roots of the heirloom toms behind them on trellis:

While I'm at it, here's my patty pan (she has a baby bump, I'm so excited! ) which I'm training to go on the trellis next a watermelon and then some late planted cucs. Also in this photo is more watermelon to the left of the patty pan grabbing a make-shift trellis thing.  Then behind that is the last of my purple garlic growing bigger I hope.  In the middle is some basil and what might be carrots but it could also be Queen Anne Lace, not sure yet:

The squash garden is good, with summer squash in the left & middle old school SFG's and the strawberrys in the right one.  In back is the winter squash, either butternut or spaghetti,  being trained to go up the rhodie hedge behind it.  In the rear SFG's are peonies, tomatillos & more winter squash.  The baking soda spray is working great for PM prevention, but the yellowed leaves are the ones I didn't spray the backs of.  I'll pick them off this weekend:

The greens, kale/collards/chard, are still greening.     I might have harvested those poor kales in front to death tho:

The bush beans are beaning, shading the SuperSonic toms.  The pole beans are heading up the trellis's behind them but no flowers yet.  The 3 cucs in a bucket have one cuc each growing on them:
The bees LOVE these cucs, so I'm hoping these babies don't shrivel up and die like all the others have:

This is the box with my messy onions, peppers & cherry tom (one already reached the top of the 6' trellis so will have to go down the other side). Since these toms aren't shaded they have extra layer of compost on them to keep them cool:

And last but not least is my bucket brigade waiting to be washed and filled at lunch today so I can water tomorrow BECAUSE WE DON'T GET NO RAIN NEVER!    

Geez...I didn't mean to take you on a tour.  But it was fun!
CC

CC everything is looking absolutely terrific!

CapeC...Thanks for the walk thru your garden.  Its looking nice and healthy and things are ready to go, go, go.  Sorry to hear you aren't getting the t-showers we've been getting to relieve you of the bucket brigade.

Very enjoyable tour!  Looks so nice, and I love your protected "greens" box.

B & B pickles  

CapeCoddess wrote:I wanted to let you all know that some my FL lettuce, Bijou, is getting sunburned at the edges.  I was told that that wouldn't happen.  Fortunately I also planted some in part shade and they are fine.  

(snip)

It occurs to me that part of why that's happening may be that our days are longer here, so the poor things are just getting *more* sun than they're equipped to take & also, you haven't been getting enough rain.

Too much sun & not enough water isn't a good combo for any of us, though I'm sure you've been doing your best at keeping things hydrated.  It's just not the same as a good soaking rain.

P.S. Great garden pics!

And so it begins...

Yum! Those look great camp. I wish my cukes would hurry up!! I want pickles  

RoOsTeR wrote:Yum! Those look great camp. I wish my cukes would hurry up!! I want pickles  

I hope your cukes come in soon. I bartered for these cukes.

I love that zombies pic!   Too funny.

CC, I love your garden! And the bucket brigade is great. Your garden seems nice and spacious, not crowded, and it's interesting to see the small groups you plant in.

Also, I love that squash garden. Out of the way, on its own, mulched so no weeds, if I were a squash, that's where I'd want to be.

Thanks, all, for liking my garden.  

Molly, when I read what you said about our long days and the FL lettuce it struck me as completely correct.  duh.  You are so smaht!

Did you guys see Lyndeeloos harvest photo in one of the Harvest threads?  She's weeks ahead of me.  How do you guys do that???

Camp, nice pickles.  Are they water or pressure canned?

CC

Pickles were made with honey, one reason they are darker, and processed in a boiling water bath for 10 minutes.

Blushing! So excited! Supersonic:     Looks like a peach, right?  Funny thing about these F2's, the toms on the plant next to this one have flat bottoms.

First pepper:   It's either a Bull Horn or Banana.  I didn't pay attention when I put them in as those are the only ones I planted.

And just because it's purdy:

It's amazing how fast everything is growing now...like it's all popping out of the air!

Question:  When you plant only 2 different types/colors of peppers or toms in the same box, do you keep tabs on which one is which?

CC

PS  Even tho it's in the forecast, I doubt we'll be getting any rain tonite.

CapeCoddess wrote:Thanks, all, for liking my garden.  

Molly, when I read what you said about our long days and the FL lettuce it struck me as completely correct.  duh.  You are so smaht!

(snip)

Why, thankyou, thankyouverymuch!   

(And now back to our regularly scheduled programming.)

Is anyone else getting some serious lows tonight?  I just looked and it says low of 55 in my town, which probably means a few digits lower in my particularly cold micro-climate garden.

I've already brought in the eggplants (that flower got pollinated & I've got a BABY so need to coddle him), and now I'm going to bite the bullet and make some covers for the det toms in 5-gal buckets.   The toms & peppers in the SFG will just get draped with row covers the best I can.

I knew I'd have to do it sooner or later, but in mid-July?  

Geesh.

Really should not have to worry about temps unless they go into the 30s. The only thing that will happen is cell division will slow down until the temps rise again, but the soil is so warm that is unlikely.

You don't worry about blossom-drop with temps in the 50s, Camp?

I purposely bought tomato & pepper seeds that are supposed to tolerate low temps, but 55 (and even 50 forecasted for tomorrow) makes me a teeny bit .

A few nights won't cause trouble. if you throw a sheet over the plants that will help retain some heat coming off the pot. I would be more apt to break a stem or tip over the pot if I tried moving it.
http://www.njfarmfresh.rutgers.edu/documents/BlossomDropinTomatoes.pdf

We have had temps 100+ and no rain now for over a week. I find my peppers and tomatoes, even though they are in the 8" bed, need watering every day or they show signs of heat stress. Too bad, this morning was stage 20 of the Tour de France, then we went to Tower Hill for the AHA Day Lilly show. Sally King from Bolton was judging. So I didn't get to the garden until late afternoon, even though it was threatening to thunderstorm. I figured if I went to water the garden, it would surely rain. I did and it didn't. It's still hot.

A few of the peppers were indeed sagging when I got to the garden. Peppers really don't like extreme heat and they will not set fruit with temps in the 90s. I have lots of peppers on the plants but no pepper blossoms or even buds. Tonight's low is predicted to be 66 (no rain of course) and next week is in the mid-80s, which is fine with me and the peppers. Here are a few photos of the garden.

The Jimmy Nardello peppers are loaded and are starting to color up.



My Copra yellow onions are starting to fall over, meaning harvest is close.



This Purple Peacock broccoli is looking good and starting to form a head. Purple Peacock is a cross between kale and broccoli, so everything is edible.



The Juliet tomato is gonzo as usual. This photo shows a 9-tomato cluster starting to ripen, with a 15-tomato cluster above it. Above that is another 9-tomato cluster.



I harvested a few vegetables while there. This photo shows Jimmy Nardello peppers, Juliet and Sungold tomatoes, a Ping Tung eggplant, and some Pimiento de Padron peppers.



Finally, a little color. The only flowers in my garden are Nasturtiums, but they are burned out by this heat. But my neighbor in the garden, who was there for the same reason, to water her garden and cause it to rain, has some Zowie! zinnias that are truly beautiful.

Dvelten, great looking garden. Are the Jimmy Nardellos hot of like bells?

Well if peppers don't set flowers or fruit when temps are in the 90s, I feel better about mine being so unproductive. After the first eggplant or two, this year and last, I never seem to get any more, so maybe the heat is doing the same thing to them.

Still, you did get some production harvested there.

Once we get some moderate weather the peppers usually start flowering again. The Jimmy Nardellos are a sweet frying pepper, an Italian heirloom from Connecticut. First year I have grown them so I haven't tasted them yet. Once red, you can also dry them ristra-style. The Pimiento de Padron peppers are a Spanish pepper picked small for tapas. You toss them in a pan with a little olive oil or grill them until they blister a little, then sprinkle with sea salt and eat. The seeds are immature so you can eat the entire pepper. They are sweet but maybe one in 10 is hot, for a little surprise now and then.

Everything looks WOW! Those Juliet tomatoes, are they a beefsteak type or a sauce/paste tomato?