dinner tonight

Tonight's harvest: beets, carrots, potatoes and swiss chard. And a bonus picture of the almost 4 foot corn plants.

don't thin the beets!

I planted a pack of "Gourmet Blend" beets from Botanical Interest that includes traditional red beets, chiogga beets, and yellow beets (which have been very slow to mature). I saw a post on Skippy's Garden about not thinning beets, but instead just letting them push each other apart as they grow to make necessary room. I was skeptical because if it in fact works, then why is beet thinning even suggested? Anyway, it apparently works and I will never waste a baby beet again.

2010's tragic crop - Sunflowers

So I suppose I have high hopes for everything I grow, but I was becoming especially attached to the idea of towering rows of sunflowers this year. Unfortunately, it doesn't look like I'm going to get it. This picture was taken 3 days ago when they looked like they still might be able to pull through. They're pretty much dead stalks now. I had found a few bugs eating them but I didn't recognize them nor did I have my camera around. The little bastards didn't even look like bugs. They looked like tiny gray pebbles. Whatever they are, I hate them.

Zucchini & Summer Squash

We should be eating these by the 4th of July. The zucchini variety is Raven and the summer squash is Gentry. Both seeds were from Fedco and had super germination.

Tomatoes

The top photo is a Box Car Willie and the bottom is Cherokee Purple. The other two varieties in the garden are Hillbilly and San Marzano, but their fruits are not very significant yet.

last night's harvest

4 beets (2 red, 2 chiogga)
2 big mokum carrots
2 spring onions

The garden looks like mid July! The beets have all matured over night.
I'll try to post more pictures soon. There are 3 inch long zucchinis
and summer squash, and the tomatoes are on steroids.

spinach and tomatoes

The spinach started bolting so I uprooted everything and harvested a
huge bowl of perfect leaves. We had a lot of spinach salad with dinner
tonight. I turned a little manure where the spinach had been and
planted 6 basil seedlings and one orange bell pepper. That leaves me
with 1 empty spot! That's valuable real estate.

My tomatoes, as well as everything else, has grown tremendously the
past few rainy days. Apparantly I didn't stake them in time though
because the wind bent over the 6 or 8 plants on the eastern most side.
They are all San Marzanos and they suffered some stalk-crack being
bent over. I put cages around them and I'm hoping they'll mend
themselves without me having to splint them.
As a side note, I can't believe how early the Cherokee Purples are
fruiting! Several plants have golf ball sized fruit already.

New Potatoes

I picked a dozen very early potaoes on saturday with some rosemary and
contributed them to a big summer family dinner.
In the future I'll try to remember that what Kennebecs lack in
potatoey sex appeal they make up for in super early maturity as well
as loads of baby spuds still growing under there.

sweet potato slips are here

My slips came yesterday from Sand Hill! I ordered a mix of early
yielding varieties for cool climates. They sent me 6 'Copper Jewel'
which have the beautiful purplish maple-like leaves. They are
described as having orange flesh and skin. I also recieved 6 'Ivis
White Cream' which will have white skin and white flesh. They all
looked very beautiful and healthy. They were just shy of drying out so
I planted 4 of each yesterday. I will likely plant the remaining 4 in
my uncle's plot.

I also finally got my hands on some All Blue seed potatoes. I bought 8
and will have to make room in the raised potato bed next to the
sweets. The timing is perfect because I have about 6 or 8 Kennebecs
that are huge with flowers on them. It's the perfect excuse to uproot
them all for new potatoes while clearing spots for the blue seed.

sitting in the garden

Here's a pretty shot of the raised beds.