Planting the garden

Today I spent quite a while in the garden planting. I planted Optimum Corn, space miser zucchini, lemon cucumbers, romaine lettuce, summertime lettuce, and crook neck squash. I transplanted the celery into the south square foot garden and put the shade cloth over it. It's really in need of the shade right now while its getting established. I also spent some time texting back and forth with my sister who is gardening in a row garden for the first time. She needed to know how far apart to plant onions. Where to plant things - I always plant my tallest items on the east since my rows run north and south. I'm just glad she is willing to ask questions - it makes for a better crop and then she won't have to waste as much time with trial and error, cause I know I did. What are your gardening questions?

Weekend Harvest

I harvested the tomatoes today.  I was craving something at about dinner time so I went to see if there were any tomatoes ready.  The early girls were looking good but as many were eaten by birds as I harvested.  I think I need netting.  And the Cherokee Purple were ready.  I ate 5 at dinner.  Don't worry, I offered to share but no one likes them.

These two bright red bumpy lumpy tomatoes are red beef steak tomatoes.  They are the smallest tomatoes on the vine. The rest are really big.

The cherokee purple really have a different color but are really tasty.  I loved them.

Some of the early girls are not quite ready but I brought them inside to get to them before the birds do. 

I picked a few carrots for snacks.  

And I roasted some crook neck squash seeds for Kiwi.  275 degrees for 15 minutes. Not what I expect but I added a little Emeril's seasoning and scarfed them down myself. I can't wait to roast some squash for dinner tomorrow.

Kiwi ate the squash guts for a little while.  Then I placed it outside for the wild birds.

Harvest Monday - August 22nd

Well, you win some, you loose some.  This past week was an interesting one.  On Tuesday I spent the day fighting off the Army Worms.  I thought at first they were tomato fruit worms and a neighbor called them cutworms.  Apparently they are all related. But I sent an email to the USU extension services with my bowl full of those nasty things (see below) and Taun said that they came from the alfalfa field and I was lucky that the ground was not moving.  Uhm, seriously?  If I had that many I don't think I'd ever garden again. I have faith things will be better - see, I'm starting more lettuce.

 I did have a crazy run in with the tomato hornworm.  I found a one inch tiny one first - not bad.  Then as I was shaking the only roma tomato in a cage this big fat hornworm flopped on the ground. It was at least 3/4 inch wide and 5 inches long.  Gag!  I screamed and then jumped back a few feet.  I lost half my roma tomatoes which is sad because I really wanted to try making my own tomato sauce because I purchased one of these this year.  I don't know if the plants will recover enough to give me some more.  I ripped off all the larger roma tomatoes - green or otherwise and checked for holes and if they were good, they got washed in soapy water and placed in the window as you can see here.  I have 8 roma plants and I don't think I'm going to get much after all.  

See - as my friend Keiko said, "I think I just threw up in my mouth." No, I did not touch the hornworm - I scooped it into the bowl with the lid.  Yes, I did pick off all those army worms by hand.  Thank you Atlas garden gloves. And having said that, I will never buy leather gardening gloves again.  The nitrile touch garden gloves have spoiled me.  They wash well and wick the moisture away.  I LOVE them.  They fit well.  And I don't get dirt down into the tips of the glove fingers like I did with the leather gloves. I blame the seams for that.  Atlas nitrile touch garden gloves rock!

I did have some luck on Thursday and harvested this nice bunch of tomatoes, 1 more squash, and 4 lemon cucumbers. Loving the lemon cucs.  

And go check out Daphne's Dandelions to see fun a beautiful harvests from all over the world. It's also interesting to see how far behind I am living here in the tops of the mountains.  And I have to share this photo again.  Can you blame me?

Harvest Monday - August 15th

Head on over to Daphne's Dandelions and scroll on down to see what everyone else is harvesting.

On the 10th I canned 10 Quarts of green beans.  I'm loving the wide mouth jars for this.  I used my 23 quart Presto Pressure Canner.

On the 12th I harvested the first of my tomatoes and 1 squash.  I have 2 squash plants and they are producing just the right amount for what my husband and I can eat.

Here is today's harvest, August 15th.  There is an infestation of caterpillars.  They have orange red heads and black and grey stripe the long way.  They are all over the house and it was amazing to me that they were on everything and didn't care that it was a jalapeno, pumpkin, or onion.  I'll post a photo when I can calm down enough to get one.  They've just about destroyed my green onions.

If you've never tried a lemon cucumber you need to.  It's delicious! This one was a little bigger than the size of a baseball.

I accidentally got my first heirloom tomato.  Oops.  I love the character. This is a pink brandywine that's still green of course. I'm going to let it sit in the window sill and see if it'll ripen.

 I also did my 3rd green bean picking.  It's slowing down.  They cut the alfalfa in the field next to the garden and the grasshoppers have moved in.  Wish they'd eat the caterpillars instead of the green bean blossoms.  

And this had me super happy.  The jalapenos are starting to look good.  I didn't really need this many but I did chop up 4 and needed 3 for my pico de gallo.  It's heavenly to eat fresh pico from fresh produce.  I'll post photos soon.

I haven't done a total before so I thought I'd start today.  I think it's such a great idea and something I want to include in my garden journal from now on.

Today's Total

Alliums: 5.15 lb

Cabbage: .88 lb

Cucumber: 1.1 lb

Green Beans: 4.41 lbs

Jalapenos: .25 lb

Kohlrabi: .10 lb

Squash: .44 lb

Tomato: 3.7 lbs

Garden Harvest

This is a small harvest from the 5th.  I picked two small onions because I needed room for the larger onions to grow.  Finally harvested my first squash - that's my fault - I planted 2 and late because of the soggy wet spring.  And two kohlrabi which will sit in my fridge until I get the guts to throw them away.  

On Sunday I picked two bell peppers and one onion for fajitas since my mom and niece were here.  It was a great way to end Fast Sunday.  My mom even noticed that the bell peppers were a prettier green color than she'd ever seen in the store.  She was right.  And much more delicious!

catching up with the rest

Peppers - it looks like my peppers are doing pretty well this year.  They do need to be staked up and I'll get around to that soon.  I need to make a trip to the hardware store.  

And even with the hot weather they are starting to bud.  I have a few bell peppers already showing up but the jalapenos are taking their time.

 The fern leaf dill is going crazy.  My husband pulled up two of them because he thought they were dyers woad.  I can see the resemblance except that Dyers Woad is black this time of year and doesn't smell as good.  

The nice thing about planting basil next to the tomatoes is that the horn worms hate it.  The bad thing is that the slugs are terrible this year and they LOVE basil.  Besides, all the rest of my basil has met with an early demise.  I want to get at least one batch of bruschetta please. Check out that link, it's an excellent recipe and their site is great, that is if you haven't fallen in love with it yet.

And the squash is finally growing. I love summer squash.  Grilled.

And the carrots are doing well.  The middle section of the row washed away in a heavy rainstorm so they are short than the outer edges.  But they are all growing well.