9/4/10 Garden update

My yellow and red tomatoes that I cut up to make spaghetti sauce with. I've harvested so many tomatoes over the past couple of weeks that I have been able to make several batches of sauce for meals AND eat them raw and slice them up for sandwhichs!

I took these photos on 8/30.

My tomatoes have been very bountiful and delicious. Unfortunately, this past week has had hot days and cool nights (creates a lot of condensation on the leaves) and my tomato plants have become infected. One plant had signs of late blight but I pulled off the infected parts and its still hanging in there. Another plant has lots of small brown spots. Again, I cut off the infected parts and its still kicking. I probably should have been spraying them with fungicide more often but things have been crazy this past week.

My yellow tomatoes below have all been huge and a beautiful yellow inside.

My snow pea and pea plants have replaced my cukes on the trellis.

My summer squash are very infected and not producing very much. I think it might be time to rip them out and transplant some of my seedlings.

The trellised zuke plant is the only one left. It just keeps on growing! I still have to hand pollinate the female flowers and not all of the ones in this photo have continued to grow : ( I've noticed two side shoots forming with male and felmale flowers forming. I think as long as it's warm enough I could be harvesting zukes for another month.

Both rows of green beans are still producing. In fact, I think I need to check them daily because they are growing so fast that they are HUGE by the time I havest them. The photo below is one day's harvest. The back row had purple streaks on them and were harvested from bothe rows. All the green beans I harvested in the past couple days don't have the purple streaks.

Does anyone know what caused this? I didn't cook them for a meal because I didn't know if they were safe to eat.

I harvested my first tomatoes EVER!!!

Yippee! After last years tomato blight and having to rip out and throw away plants with bright red ROTTING tomatoes on them I am so proud and excited to have harvested healthy tomatoes this year :D I have more ripening as we speak.

I almost killed my entire garden yesterday when I was spraying it with organic

fungicide. I had half a bottle of concentrate and within a minute it was all gone!! There was a kink in the hose which meant that I was spraying my garden with concentrated UNDILUTED fungicide. I immediately smelled a strong vinegar smell. I unkinked the hose and just sprayed the crap out of my garden with water. The already sick cuke plants took the most damage to the leaves. I pruned all the damage. They are still alive this morning. Fingers crossed they survive!

This was yesterdays harvest. The lettuce is almost gone. I have a new crop growing in my nursery.

8-14-10 garden update

I took the above photos this morning.

HARVESTS

These were harvested yesterday.

The photos above and below were harvested within the last two weeks.

CUKES

I took these photos a week ago before a harvest. I am loving the trellis. Unfortunately, it has not done much to help prevent fungal/bacterial infection.

These leaves are on one of my three sickest cuke plants. the cukes on the sick plants are still growing, I'm not sure how it will effect them (size, taste, etc.) if at all.

LETTUCE

I'm still harvesting the outer leaves. I've been finding that if I rinse the leaves, store them in an open plastic bag for a few days before eating it makes them much tastier. My second row of younger lettuce is not ready for harvest yet and is hidden behind my huge summer squash plant leaves.

TOMATOES

They are hanging in there and still disease free. I'm just starting to see ripening ones and hoping they stay disease free until harvest. I've been pruning and spraying frequently with fungicide. My tomato, green bean and lettuce plants are staying healthy but the cuke, summer squash and zuke plants are very infected.

SUMMER SQUASH AND ZUKES

My squash plants are heavily infected with powdery mildew but are still producing.

I am down to 2 zuke plants. The two that were in the middle row never produced despite my best hand pollinating efforts so I pulled them out. The trellised zuke plant is doing well and I will be definetly be trellising all of them next year.

Out of all the female zuke flowers I have hand pollinated only 4 have reached maturity and been harvested. These are the most current zukes I have hand pollinated. Fingers crossed they make it!

GREEN BEANS

The oldest row is on a second round of blossoms and starting to produce. The youngest row are extremely tall for some reason. I planted fewer seeds in this row so I don't know if the tall growth is due to the plants having more room for the roots or what.

CABBAGE

My two remaining heads of cabbage are swiss cheese. I'm not pulling them yet because I'd rather have the bugs eat this than my nursery seedlings close by.

THE FALL VEGGIE NURSERY

Almost all the seeds I sowed have sprouted. I have to thin them soon.

7/25/10 Garden update

I trellised this zucchini plant because it was in danger of growing over the wall and it is producing the most (with hand pollination, more on that below) and I just wanted to try it : )

Not sure when I should pick this lettuce. I'm hoping it doesn't get bitter. Any advice on when to harvest it would be appreciated.

I replaced the wooden 4 ft. stakes on my my taller tomato plants with vinyl coated 6 ft. stakes. I think I will no longer use the wooden stakes after this summer because they are prone to rotting, getting moldy and encourage fungal growth. I've been using a stretchy, plastic "tape" for staking, training to vine to a trellis, etc. and I really like it. It doesn't rot, get moldy or cut into the plants.

I really like the Bayer Natria Disease Control Spray. It is the only spray I am currently using. It can be sprayed on all the plants in my garden and is very effective. I have been using the same bottle (attached to your hose and mixes as you spray) all summer.

I have been pruning my tomato plants aggressively (pruned them again after these photos). I think my tomato plants were falling victim to late blight last month and was picking off all signs of disease daily along with the suckers. I am finding that the indeterminate variety that I have is more work but is much easier to keep disease free. You can take off quite a bit of the branches and leaves and they will continue to produce new growth. I had a couple of plants that had a diseased main stem early on and either a new main stem grew in its place or I was able to take a sucker (I leave one sucker below each tomato cluster) and make that the new main stem.

My cukes are doing really well. I am pruning off the suckers by cutting them after the first leaf and cucumber.

My other row of lettuce.

The summer squash plants are doing well but the squash they are producing are pretty small but still tasty : ) I've harvested 4 so far.

My zukes have been giving me some trouble. I started noticing that they were turning yellow and dying at 1-2 inches in length. With some internet research I decided the problem was that the female flowers (they become the zucchini) were not opening at all and therefor not getting pollinated by the male flowers (these were opening but the pollen was not able to be transferred to the female via bees, wind, etc.) So I have been forcing open the female flowers when they are about 1-2 inches long and still green and taking a wilted closed male flower, ripping off the petals and sticking the stamen into the female flower. I have been able to grow 2 zukes to full size and harvest them by doing this. I currently have 1 (below) that is on it's way to becoming mature. None of the female flowers are opening. I have not had this problem with my cukes or squash (they are equipped with male and female flowers and are from the same plant family called cucerbits)

I trellised this zuke plant to see what would happen : )

The green beans are producing well. We have already eaten two harvests this past week.

I planted another row where I had been trying to grow cauliflower unsuccessfully. I tried transplanting the pumpkin plants to a garden below the wall. The female flowers have not been opening on them. I ripped out one and planted gourds and will be taking out the remaining pumpkin plant and planting gourds.

The cabbages are finally forming small heads. I ripped out the broccoli and Brussels sprouts. I will be using this empty area as a nursery to grow my fall crops of broccoli, Brussels sprouts, lettuce, spinach and cauliflower (maybe more cabbage).

I would really love to see garden updates from you all!