Thursday, August 13, 2009

Preparing for late summer plantings

Although the summer heat and humidity is in full swing I have my eyes set on fall goodies. I ordered my end of summer plants from Tasteful Garden this week and they should be here next week. I also picked up 8 bags of cow manure for my raised gardens. I have a feeling the tomatoes and cucumbers sapped a lot of the good stuff out of the soil.

The cucumbers are nearing their end. I don't think the last couple are going to fully develop. Next year I think I'm going to do the cucumbers on an arbor. They got too crowded on the trellis I made for them. I under estimated how prolific they would be.

The red and yellow grape tomatoes have slowed on their ripening but there is still a lot of green ones and blooms so I think they will keep plugging along.

The beefsteaks are doing their thing as well as the black plum tomatoes. I probably have enough black plums to do another 2 pound bag for the freezer. I included some picks from my freezing frenzy.

I'll check back when I have my new plantings to give you the low down on what I have planned!

Stay cool!

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Garden Update


The garden and I seem to have hit a comfortable pace. I get out there about every 3 days to bring in whatever is ready. The cucumbers are starting to die back some and not produce as much as quickly. I am picking about every 3 days and getting about 6 cucumbers. Just a few weeks ago I was getting 6 or so a day. This is a better pace for sure!

The black plum tomatoes have really take off though. I picked 38 this morning and am now looking up directions for freezing so I can keep them for sauce this winter. Next summer I am going to venture into canning but this summer I'm just doing a lot of freezing. It should be fine since they are just going in sauce.

The beefsteak, pictured above, is putting out about 5 tomatoes every few days. Looks like it has plenty more to go.

The marigolds look good. I think they are doing their job, I still don't seem to be having issue with critters and I've seen the rabbit twice, but not in the garden. I do throw a grape tomato or two behind the shed when I am picking, maybe that makes them happy enough to leave the garden alone.

In the cucumber picture above you can barely see my mini red bell pepper plant. It has produced about a dozen peppers. They are so cute and so sweet! They are part of dinner tonight I think.

The yellow bell pepper has done pretty well with 4 so far. The first one was regular size the next few were a little on the small size but very tasty.

Getting ready to fertilize again this week and thankfully we had some rain so I was able to save some water.

Happy gardening everyone!

Yellow Grape Tomato

Better late than never... Here is a picture of my yellow grape tomato plant. It has slowed it's ripening pace from a pint a day to about a pint every 3 days. As you can see there is still plenty of tomatoes still to ripen. The cage is 7.5 feet tall so I think the plant is easily 8-8.5 feet tall. Thankfully I can stand on the sides of the garden bed to get the top fruit.