Tag Archives: tomato

Sun!

We love this weather!” exclaim the tomatoes, squash, melons, corn, and beans.  “About time!”
Oh, don’t forget the baby basil, starting to plump out their true leaves.

Oooowee! Tomatoes enjoying freedom from their red jackets, and lots of things rejoicing in warmth.

Do we gardeners get bonus points for our patience?

Yes, finally we have been graced with several days of real summer weather, so that the logarithmic growth rate is very visible.  Rumor has it that consistently warm days will not be with us until late July or August, and we’ll be bouncing around with cooler weather again, possibly this coming week.  But, it finally feels like we’re in the real month of June, albeit near the end.

With the longest days of the summer solstice at hand, as if on cue, the spinach has bolted, as well as a couple of beets and some lettuce.  Time for a big greens harvest.

Great hidey-holes in the towering sugar peas; Juniper is out, where's Aspen?

Although we’re not tracking the pounds of bounty going to the food bank, per se, I think it would be fairly realistic to say that at least 75% of June’s bounty is going to help others.  At least 7 pounds of greens were harvested this morning, headed directly to a food bank.

Over 7 pounds of luscious greens headed for a food bank

Prediction: no knee-high corn by July 4th; maybe shin-high.  Will report!

Red jackets & tomatoes

Fortunately, hardly anyone witnessed the laying out of soaker hoses one evening while it was chilly and threatening to sprinkle.  We would have been deemed crazy, as there we were in our fleece jackets and sweats.  There was only one quizzical look.  Truly, the hoses would have been useful four days earlier when we actually had two consecutively warm days, and the lettuce, kale, and chard went into minor shock.  What was supposed to be a warm and sunny week, with only 1 day of “cooler interference”,  morphed into 5 days of below-normal temperatures with little sun.  (Not sure anymore when we’ll actually see 3 consecutive days of mostly sun.)

Which is why the tomatoes are staying wrapped up in their airy red jackets!

Tomatoes with red jackets to help cope with Juneuary weather

Yes, we are grateful for not being deluged with tornadoes, rain and floods, as others are enduring.  And yes, it is perfect weather for planting.

At the same time, some of our plants would love to bathe in more light and warmth, so they grow well.

We’re ready for summer!  Or some semblance of it……

Greens galore! June 12-2010

Soil temperature = air temperature

When does the soil temp equal air temp?  Is this a riddle?  Answer: Today!

Seriously, in the CG bed at 4″ depth, the temp reads 45°, and today the air temp reached 45°, down 15° from our heat wave last weekend, thanks to a cold front.

Fortunately, during the heat wave, the CG bed received its final 3 cu. yards of soil to fill in the tiers.  Time to consider an early spring planting fairly soon; good excuse for another tea party!

Meanwhile, with sleet in the forecast outside, it’s time to get some basil, zinnia, and lobelia seeds planted inside!

Aspen reserving room on the seedling heat mat

January doldrums

Holidays are past; caretaking of people and pets is past; friends are off to the southern hemisphere (Chile) for some summer bicycle touring; and we have rain, rain, drizzle, rain, showers, rain, with tidbits of sun and fog. But, no complaints; my issues with rain don’t happen until late winter.  Today it is mild weather and much preferable to freezing rain.

It’s a great time to get caught up on indoor reorganization, sorting, and simplifying; all the stuff I never get to during a gardening season.

Today has been a day to dash outside between showers to do some cleanup of flattened Crocosmia and lily stalks, and admire the weeds that are growing so well.  Suet and seed needed replenishing, as little flocks of bushtits, goldfinches, juncos, warblers, starlings, a nuthatch, and a flicker all made their appearances.  A couple of days ago a downy woodpecker showed up for the first time (that I know of)!  All great entertainment on a grey day.

Am I contemplating the next garden plantings and dreaming with seed catalogs?  Not really.  Give me another 3 weeks before I’m antsy.  I’m still in rest mode.  Not that I haven’t already contemplated some new varieties of veggies to try, but that was last fall.  Besides, the garden gang will be meeting at the end of the month for an informal tea, to get our ideas flowing.

However, I am contemplating consuming the last tomato of the garden.  Yes, there still were ripening tomatoes in December!

Garden tomatoes for a New Year's salad

Halloween Bounty

Halloween 2009

Happy Halloween!

A beautiful All Saints’ Day is dimming as I post our October bounty:

  • Summer squash:        13.5 (pounds)
  • Swiss chard:                 0.5
  • Lettuce:                         1
  • Beans:                           0.75
  • Peppers:                       2
  • Tomatoes:                  38.75
  • Eggplant:                     0.5
  • Beets:                           2 (tops & roots)
  • Winter squash:         46.5
  • Apples:                         1.5

Total for month:                109

Total season bounty:        568 pounds

Thank you plants, pollinators, and devas!

Bye-bye basil…..hello lettuce

While goldfinches feast upon sunflowers and nuthatches nip away at the suet, we have picked our way through all the squash, tomatoes and peppers, laying most to rest and ripen in garages and windows.

Final samplings of squash, tomatoes, and peppers.  Clockwise from yellow summer squash resting on top of darker buttercup squash: "yellow" pepper, spaghetti squash, delicata squash, patty-pan squash, with ripening tomatoes nestled among squash.

Final samplings of squash, tomatoes, and peppers. Clockwise from yellow summer squash resting on top of darker buttercup squash: "yellow" pepper, spaghetti squash, delicata squash, patty-pan squash, with ripening tomatoes nestled among squash.

My lone cricket still eeks out his chirps most evenings, letting me know that all the frost warnings are not quite for real…..just yet.  The predicted heavy rainstorms never materialized in our area, only a couple of short-lived squalls one day.  But, it’s so much easier to do cleanup when it’s a lovely, dry autumn afternoon.

The kale, lettuce, chard, and leeks are very happy with the current phase of mild part sun, part cloudy days, alternating with rain, and the nasturtiums that refused to grow all summer have never looked so lush…….

Mid-October transitions in the garden.  Where's Juniper?

Mid-October transitions in the garden. Where's Juniper?

But, it’s not over yet!  It’s not THE final harvest……we’re just getting growing on the fall crops….check back in!

Classy evening wear

Just because we harvested all the basil the evening before a cold rain was supposed to dowse us, the storm skirted north, depositing its brief, but heavy showers while I was slipping the last plants.  I wasn’t going to take the chance of seeing our beautiful plants become black-spotted before harvest!

Instead, dry, but cooler weather has prevailed, allowing the summer squash to keep pushing out more small “gourmet size” fruits, while several yellow bell peppers have actually yielded a couple of large, still-green specimens.  (Perhaps they felt it necessary to prove themselves after finding themselves mentioned in a “comedy of errors” mode.)  Tomatoes are in absolute limbo with the lower sun angle and night temperatures hovering in the low to high 30’s.  They have earned the right to wear evening jackets!

Evening wear for classy tomatoes

Classy evening jackets for the tomatoes

Happy to report that the lettuce seedlings that had nearly been chomped to death before evacuation of the kale and chard, have pulled through and are starting to put on a little girth.  And, some rainbow chard seeded in July, largely sheltered by green beans and squash has grown up nicely, almost ready for picking.

Lo and behold, I came upon another “double-take” today while scouting about the patty-pan/saucer squash; that makes four pairs of fused veggies this season!

Double-take on patty-pan squash

Double-take on patty-pan squash

We’ve been warned about a rapid arctic front moving in just ahead of autumn rains setting in, and the weather guy’s last-minute prediction of 28° had two of us running out before dusk to clip off all the tomatoes.  It felt too warm to believe it could fall that low, but we weren’t going to get up at 4:00 am. to find out.  As it turned out, it only went down to the crisp 30’s again, but we’re further along in preparation for the temperature dive now postponed for a couple of days.

September Bounty

The September pickings are in, just as weather decides it will actually be fall-like!

  • Summer squash:        40 (pounds)
  • Cucumbers                  20.5
  • Swiss chard:                18
  • Kale:                              25
  • Beans:                             4.5
  • Peppers:                         0.50
  • Tomatoes:                    51.5
  • Eggplant:                        1
  • Scallions:                        2.75
  • Beets:                              1.5 (tops & roots)
  • Basil:                               6.5
  • Potatoes:                        2
  • Winter squash:             23

Grand Total:         197 (rounded off)
(Slid on past the August total!)

Total season bounty:  459 pounds

Thank you plants, pollinators, and devas!

Emergency evacuation: pests out of control!

In a fast move to save the lettuce seedlings being savagely eaten in an outbreak of both aphids and Cabbage White Looper caterpillars migrating from the neighboring chard and kale, an emergency evacuation took place.  Thanking the plants for their extremely productive service, all kale and chard was removed, salvaging what little was decently usable as food, but discarding most directly into the waste debris containers.  This is what we get for “slacking off” in observation given our really busy schedules last week, while there was a burgeoning plague.  I had noticed a few tell-tale signs of building aphid populations on the kale, as well as white flies, but nothing had seemed in imminent danger. Then the Swiss chard seemed to become inundated with aphids almost overnight.  Evidently, behind that were lurking newly hatched Cabbage loopers, always unseen until they wreak havoc, stripping plants to their ribs in only 1 or 2 nights.  Even with eradicating the plant host-sources, and spraying Thuricide* on the lettuce, we could still lose the whole row, but hopefully not.  We’ll know in a day or two.

It was also good incentive to tidy up other areas in the garden looking a bit more distressed, removing the cucumbers and ‘delicata’ squash plants, and trimming back the sprawling cherry tomatoes.

"Looking good" yet hunry pests lurk in the chard and kale.  So, now you see us.....

"Looking good" yet hunry pests lurk in the chard and kale. So, now you see us.....

Free of aphids and ...........

.........Now you don't! And the lettuce seedlings are much happier.

*Thuricide is a liquid comprised of millions of spores of the bacterium Bacillis thuringiensis, which reproduce inside the gut of specific types of caterpillars, becoming fatally toxic in a very short time.  This is a naturally occurring bacterium that evolved into its specific function.

September showers are good for….a change of pace

The weather devas decided that it was time to clear the air with a good rain for at least half of Labor Day weekend.  In anticipation of serious showers many tomatoes were gleaned the prior evening, to prevent splitting.  When the steady showers picked up on Saturday we knew it had been the right decision, even if the bushes now looked “green” without hardly a ripening tomato. It was a good chance to focus on inside food preparation, like making sauce, or starting up the dehydrator.  Not quite sun-dried tomatoes, but a close equivalent.

BowlofBigBoyTomatoes-2

Tomato rescue before rain set in....

A rainy day task - drying tomatoes for winter

A rainy day task - drying tomatoes for winter

It’s been a good change of pace, spending time with all the other inside jobs one neglects when spending most of the time outdoors.  Spiders of all sorts are quickly spinning webs, even in the bath tub.  After two days of good rain showers the garden looks refreshed, although mildew has set in upon the squash and cucumbers with a vengeance.  Kale and chard keep growing like gangbusters, the basil is finally getting really bushy after a few prunings for pesto sauce, and another crop of bush beans is just about ready. The good news is we are warming again in a few days to nearly 90°, so we can ripen more tomatoes!