Retired the pearl cuke plant - its one remaining fruit never grew. But with another 12 - much bigger - Japanese cukes harvested this week, really not feeling deprived. Pretty cuke-saturated.
I knew it was bad luck to mention the cucumber beetles. They arrived as soon as I mentioned they hadn't shown yet. No especial damage yet.
The cantaloupes look so close to ripe... I don't think the plant is going to grow any further fruit, tho. Keeps setting little melons, which then yellow and fall off. It's possible it might produce more after the big three are picked...
This week I started gold bar melons - wish me luck. It's late in the season, but... they grow fast when it's hot, and they're rated at 68 days... It's really a cuke-melon hybrid. And it was only 80 cents.
The carmen seeds never sprouted - not much of a surprise. Bought new carmen seeds, and they sprouted in less than a week. Calibrachoa all graduated, moved to railing planters. The vinca rooted - barely - but they're so slow-growing I tossed it. Started some profusion zinnia and kaboko chinese cabbage seedlings instead. Not so sure about the cabbage - may be way too early. But - decided to start 3 cabbage - graduate them - start some romaines - graduate them - and do another group of cabbages. At least, that's the plan now...
Harvested 48 tomatoes this week - way too many. In addition to eating them raw, cooking them, giving them away as gifts and guinea pig fodder, also dehydrated about 20 of them. For use like sun-dried tomatoes this winter. Less work and storage problem than canning them, is the theory. There are three different approaches to dehydrating them... if the harvest keeps up this heavy, I plan to try all three.
The tomande is the main culprit - in 1.5 weeks harvesting, it's already given me 36 tomatoes. Fortunately, they're delicious, with a definite tomato-paste bent to their flavor. The early girls now taste great, and unlike the others, are pure deep red, through and through - very pretty. I've only had one bucks so far - they just keep getting bigger and ripening slowly.
The razzleberry fell over, so had to toss or bag a number of unripe tomatoes. Still haven't had a fully ripe razzle. Ate a few brandy boys - and they were very good - but had to cut out BER on them. The plant just kept getting sicker, so removed it. The razzleberry plant doesn't look well either, but at least its fruit look nice.
14 eggplant harvested this week, though the plant sure looks yellow - still bearing well, though its flowers have slowed down. Made two batches of ratatouille. Yummm....
23 ripe peppers this week - 3 lipstick, 6 mohawk, 14 mini red bells. First carmen is starting to redden. Deleted the lipstick and mohawk peppers - lipstick because it was wildly unproductive, mohawk because I still didn't like them. At the moment, the carmen pepper has a whole growbox to itself, but I'll probably put a backup cucumber or two in there with it. But not another growbox fertlizer patch, maybe... Maybe just use Miracle Gro and a spare plastic mulch.
Beth, what do you think? Re putting in a new fertilizer strip? The small cucumbers bore well at first, suffered stiff competition from the tomande tomato, and there's not really enough season left to worry about the long run. And the pepper suffered extreme competition before - now it might or might not set more fruit no matter what I do with the fertilizer.
Now that the brandy boy tomato is outta there, I'm hoping my carmen will start flowering again. It isn't nearly as big as it should be - much smaller than the mini stuffing pepper plants, even. None red yet - it lost a lot of its first-biggest to BER.
I'm still letting the mohawks get deeper orange. But maybe it's about time to give up and declare them done.
I harvested all 3 red lipstick peppers this week, and removed the plant. If that's how unproductive it is, I'd rather give the carmen more space. They tasted good - better than a red bell, but not as good as a carmen.
I was just thinking this week of mailing you a red mini bell (in ethylene-absorbing bag). Interested? They're pretty good - taste like red bells. And they do grow and produce in an AG Deluxe, and rambunctiously outdoors.
Edit: Can mail you dried fresh seeds as well, but if I mail you the fruit, maybe you can taste it.
Ooh, cool! I didn't know you could do that with an eggplant!
I'm still enjoying the gretels, and parents and neighbors want eggs, too. And my fruits are pretty small - usually pick 5-6 to bother cooking them. But the plant's looking kinda peaked, dunno how much longer it'll make it. I wonder if cutting it back would give it a new lease on life, or just kill it. I did move it farther out of the A/C compressor outflow, which may help.
Given how hot the summer's been, I'm betting on growing weather through September into October - long season!
I hear you on the heat wave. The hottest June on record. Oy. And for July, today is only the second day when the daytime high has not exceeded the normal average. (Like, the normal daytime high here gradually rises from 79 to 80 degrees over the course of July. Exactly twice, the daytime high has been that low... On the Accuweather plots, the area between actual and normal average high is impressive. ) Nowhere near as hot as you're getting though - my sympathies!
I've only been harvesting tomatoes for a week - and I've picked 45 so far, about 35 of them tomandes. Less than a week after harvesting my first, already I dragged out the dehydrator and dried like 20 of them. Deluged with tomatoes.
Bummer on your back forty tomatoes. Though it sounds like you have plenty!
I cut down my brandy boy plant today. I've had three where I could cut around the bad or unripe parts and taste them. And they're pretty good. But they all get BER, the plant was covered with early blight... just not worth it to risk keeping around. The tomande has exceeded my expectations, though. They're really good! And love, love, love the growbox life.
Shame about the stinkbugs. Knock on wood, this is the first summer since I've been in this condo where I haven't seen a cucumber beetle yet. Hope that keeps up!
Hope the ripe mohawks taste better. My bell and carmen peppers are 6 feet tall and really starting to put out. The carmen was really late to set, but it is picking up now. Gotta go down and pick a few bells for dinner....
Are you in eggplant heaven? The eb eps put out dozens of ichibans. We've had enough eggplant for now. I'm going to chop the plants back, hope they regrow and have eggplant in the fall after vacation. (like I did last year)
Looks good! Need to remember that taste in Feb! It has been brutally hot here for the last two months. Supposed to be over 100 F tomorrow. I have no interest in going out to the garden in this heat. The earthbox toms put out a five gallon bucket of toms (minus squirrel damaged toms). The main garden had a few ripe. The wayback tomatoes are a disaster. Covered with stinkbugs. Only a few usable tomatoes that are not appetizing at all. Chalk that up to experience and ignore the whole patch. Oh well...
The yellow speckles on the eggplant's leaves are rapidly turning into very yellow leaves. I hope this isn't dying already... Gave it a shot of the Sea Magic fertilizer again - hope it helps. Still has lots of fruit on it, and lots of flowers. Just cooked another 5 tonight.
I think the weather has turned blight-breeding again. Like broiling hot + dry, the plants did OK. But now it's broiling hot + steamy, and I'm seeing lots more yellow leaves on all the plants.
Harvested another 11 eggplant this week. One of the features of this variety is that you're at choice when to pick them - anytime after they're 3" long, to however big you want them.
Retired the pearl cuke plant - its one remaining fruit never grew. But with another 12 - much bigger - Japanese cukes harvested this week, really not feeling deprived.
Pretty cuke-saturated.
I knew it was bad luck to mention the cucumber beetles. They arrived as soon as I mentioned they hadn't shown yet.
No especial damage yet.
The cantaloupes look so close to ripe... I don't think the plant is going to grow any further fruit, tho. Keeps setting little melons, which then yellow and fall off. It's possible it might produce more after the big three are picked...
This week I started gold bar melons - wish me luck.
It's late in the season, but... they grow fast when it's hot, and they're rated at 68 days... It's really a cuke-melon hybrid. And it was only 80 cents.
They live. Barely. Well, the peas seeded in front of the A/C compressor died, but that was kinda expected. Modest yields from the older beans.
The carmen seeds never sprouted - not much of a surprise. Bought new carmen seeds, and they sprouted in less than a week. Calibrachoa all graduated, moved to railing planters. The vinca rooted - barely - but they're so slow-growing I tossed it. Started some profusion zinnia and kaboko chinese cabbage seedlings instead. Not so sure about the cabbage - may be way too early. But - decided to start 3 cabbage - graduate them - start some romaines - graduate them - and do another group of cabbages. At least, that's the plan now...
Harvested 48 tomatoes this week - way too many.
In addition to eating them raw, cooking them, giving them away as gifts and guinea pig fodder, also dehydrated about 20 of them. For use like sun-dried tomatoes this winter. Less work and storage problem than canning them, is the theory. There are three different approaches to dehydrating them... if the harvest keeps up this heavy, I plan to try all three. 
The tomande is the main culprit - in 1.5 weeks harvesting, it's already given me 36 tomatoes. Fortunately, they're delicious, with a definite tomato-paste bent to their flavor. The early girls now taste great, and unlike the others, are pure deep red, through and through - very pretty. I've only had one bucks so far - they just keep getting bigger and ripening slowly.
The razzleberry fell over, so had to toss or bag a number of unripe tomatoes. Still haven't had a fully ripe razzle. Ate a few brandy boys - and they were very good - but had to cut out BER on them. The plant just kept getting sicker, so removed it. The razzleberry plant doesn't look well either, but at least its fruit look nice.
14 eggplant harvested this week, though the plant sure looks yellow - still bearing well, though its flowers have slowed down. Made two batches of ratatouille.
Yummm....
23 ripe peppers this week - 3 lipstick, 6 mohawk, 14 mini red bells. First carmen is starting to redden. Deleted the lipstick and mohawk peppers - lipstick because it was wildly unproductive, mohawk because I still didn't like them. At the moment, the carmen pepper has a whole growbox to itself, but I'll probably put a backup cucumber or two in there with it. But not another growbox fertlizer patch, maybe... Maybe just use Miracle Gro and a spare plastic mulch.
Beth, what do you think? Re putting in a new fertilizer strip? The small cucumbers bore well at first, suffered stiff competition from the tomande tomato, and there's not really enough season left to worry about the long run. And the pepper suffered extreme competition before - now it might or might not set more fruit no matter what I do with the fertilizer.
Wow, Beth, on the 6' carmen pepper!
Now that the brandy boy tomato is outta there, I'm hoping my carmen will start flowering again. It isn't nearly as big as it should be - much smaller than the mini stuffing pepper plants, even. None red yet - it lost a lot of its first-biggest to BER.
I'm still letting the mohawks get deeper orange. But maybe it's about time to give up and declare them done.
I harvested all 3 red lipstick peppers this week, and removed the plant. If that's how unproductive it is, I'd rather give the carmen more space.
They tasted good - better than a red bell, but not as good as a carmen.
I was just thinking this week of mailing you a red mini bell (in ethylene-absorbing bag). Interested? They're pretty good - taste like red bells. And they do grow and produce in an AG Deluxe, and rambunctiously outdoors.
Edit: Can mail you dried fresh seeds as well, but if I mail you the fruit, maybe you can taste it.
Hi, Beth,
Ooh, cool! I didn't know you could do that with an eggplant!
I'm still enjoying the gretels, and parents and neighbors want eggs, too. And my fruits are pretty small - usually pick 5-6 to bother cooking them. But the plant's looking kinda peaked, dunno how much longer it'll make it. I wonder if cutting it back would give it a new lease on life, or just kill it. I did move it farther out of the A/C compressor outflow, which may help.
Given how hot the summer's been, I'm betting on growing weather through September into October - long season!
Thanks, Beth!
I hear you on the heat wave. The hottest June on record. Oy. And for July, today is only the second day when the daytime high has not exceeded the normal average. (Like, the normal daytime high here gradually rises from 79 to 80 degrees over the course of July. Exactly twice, the daytime high has been that low... On the Accuweather plots, the area between actual and normal average high is impressive.
) Nowhere near as hot as you're getting though - my sympathies!
I've only been harvesting tomatoes for a week - and I've picked 45 so far, about 35 of them tomandes. Less than a week after harvesting my first, already I dragged out the dehydrator and dried like 20 of them. Deluged with tomatoes.
Bummer on your back forty tomatoes.
Though it sounds like you have plenty!
I cut down my brandy boy plant today. I've had three where I could cut around the bad or unripe parts and taste them. And they're pretty good. But they all get BER, the plant was covered with early blight... just not worth it to risk keeping around. The tomande has exceeded my expectations, though. They're really good! And love, love, love the growbox life.
Shame about the stinkbugs. Knock on wood, this is the first summer since I've been in this condo where I haven't seen a cucumber beetle yet. Hope that keeps up!
Hi Gisette,
Hope the ripe mohawks taste better. My bell and carmen peppers are 6 feet tall and really starting to put out. The carmen was really late to set, but it is picking up now. Gotta go down and pick a few bells for dinner....
Beth
Hi Gisette,
Are you in eggplant heaven? The eb eps put out dozens of ichibans. We've had enough eggplant for now. I'm going to chop the plants back, hope they regrow and have eggplant in the fall after vacation. (like I did last year)
Beth
Hi Gisette,
Looks good! Need to remember that taste in Feb! It has been brutally hot here for the last two months. Supposed to be over 100 F tomorrow. I have no interest in going out to the garden in this heat. The earthbox toms put out a five gallon bucket of toms (minus squirrel damaged toms). The main garden had a few ripe. The wayback tomatoes are a disaster. Covered with stinkbugs. Only a few usable tomatoes that are not appetizing at all. Chalk that up to experience and ignore the whole patch. Oh well...
Beth
The yellow speckles on the eggplant's leaves are rapidly turning into very yellow leaves.
I hope this isn't dying already... Gave it a shot of the Sea Magic fertilizer again - hope it helps. Still has lots of fruit on it, and lots of flowers. Just cooked another 5 tonight.
I think the weather has turned blight-breeding again.
Like broiling hot + dry, the plants did OK. But now it's broiling hot + steamy, and I'm seeing lots more yellow leaves on all the plants.
Harvested another 11 eggplant this week. One of the features of this variety is that you're at choice when to pick them - anytime after they're 3" long, to however big you want them.