Showing posts with label Cantaloupe. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Cantaloupe. Show all posts

Sunday, July 15, 2012

The State of the Plots Mid-July Part 2

In the previous post "The State of the Plots Part 1", I went through Beds #1-4. In this post we will go through Beds # 5-8 and Plot 102.

Click on any picture to enlarge
This is Bed #5

In the front of Bed #5 are French Cantaloupe. I lost one plant so far and it looks like another one is on it's way out.

Behind the cantaloupe in Bed #5 are some more Pickling Cucumbers. They are struggling along just like the other cucs and just starting to produce.

The next in Bed #5 are two Small Sugar Pumpkin plants. They are very happy right now. Let's hope that it stays that way!

Following the pumpkins are a few leeks which I forgot to take pics of. They are struggling with this weather. Next are the cabbage. There are a couple of Savoy, Tet Noire and Red Acre. All of the heads are small and I have yet to harvest one. They were planted late.

This is where the spring Broccoli was planted. I sowed some Great Northern Dry Beans here and covered them with straw. These are starting to pop up too.

The Sweet Peppers are next in this bed. They are also much much smaller then the plants last year. I'm sure we will have enough to get us through the winter. At the end of this bed are two Zucchini plants which I failed to take a picture of. One was sown 2 weeks ahead of the other and are doing well.

Bed #6
The Raspberries and Blackberries are planted in this bed. They transplanted well. Hopefully we will get a late harvest of Raspberries. The Blackberries have some fruit and new shoots on them. Their harvest will be very very small as they were cut way back to transplant.

Due to the small size of the Blackberry transplants I was able to plant celery, onions and Purple Pole Beans in this bed. Next year I don't think there will be much space for any additional crops. The celery is really suffering due to our extreme heat and lack of rain this year. The onions are also very small.

The Purple Pole Beans are doing well and hopefully will start producing soon.

Bed #7 is the Strawberry Bed.
The transplanted strawberries are much much smaller then the roots I put in at the far end.

This is where the Strawberries transition from the transplants to the new roots. Boy, what a difference! They are even the same variety. Hopefully we will have a bumper crop of strawberries next year!

Bed #8 is divided in to 3 parts. 
There is Asparagus at this end. In the front I sowed some late peas where the Favas were planted. I also covered them with straw to hold moisture in so they would germinate.

In the middle of Bed #8 there are 4 Celery plants and onions. As you can see all of the celery is really struggling with this weather. It's a good thing I planted way more then we need to get us through the year.

The onions are so so small in comparison to last year. I really don't know if we will have enough for the year.

There are a few good size onions. But these are Walla Walla onions and they should be twice this size. I'm going to dice them up and freeze them.

The far end of Bed #8 is planted with another variety of Asparagus. I also sowed some peas here.

Last but not least is Plot #102.
Patti & I pulled all of the tall weeds in about 1 1/2 hours. Yesterday, I weed whacked the rest down. Now, we just need to get it tilled. Then we will put up the fencing we have accumulated and start planting fall crops!


Tuesday, June 19, 2012

The State of the Plots Mid-June

Everything at the plots seems to be growing by leaps and bounds this past week! It seems like every day the plants are bigger. I took these pictures 3 - 4 days ago and everything is much bigger when I went over there today. I'm extremely pleased to say the least.

click on any pic to enlarge
The plots from the road
  
Bed #1
The potato bed is totally out of control! 
Some of the plants are about 4' high!

The front tomato bed. Bed #2
You can't tell from the picture how stocky and sturdy these plants are. Some of the branches are an inch wide. The plants in this bed are bigger then the other tomato bed. I'm certain it's due to the mixing of the soil. I was too tired and lazy to mix in the soil in the other bed.

Bed #3


"Three Sisters Planting"
The corn, beans and squash have doubled in size since I took this picture.

Bed #4
This is the second tomato bed. The plants are very happy and healthy even though they aren't quite as big as in bed #2.

Bed #5

Bed #6

Strawberries in Bed #7
The new strawberry plants are producing much more then the ones that I transplanted. It must be due to moving them.

Bed #8
The onions seem to doing well. I sure hope that we get enough for the year.

I was pleasantly surprised to see these blossoms and berries on the transplanted blackberry bushes. They won't produce much....but, it's a good sign of years to come!

This head of cauliflower has doubled in size since taking this picture.
Yippee.....it looks like we are going to have some nice spring cauliflower!

There are 27 Celery plants at the plots. All of them look great except for these 3. They are all twisted and deformed. I was going to pull them this morning. But, I changed my mind when I saw they had ladybugs on them.

The eggplants have some beautiful flowers.

The Fava Beans survived the attack of the ants. I picked 3 this morning and they are wonderful!

The first pepper of the year is "Happy Yummy Sweet Pepper".
The seeds were given to me by Dave as part of the "Happy Acres Happy Yummy Pepper Experiment".

This is a Sweet Banana Pepper.
There are quite a few peppers on many of the plants.

There are also a lot of tomatoes everywhere at the plots!!
That will make for one "Happy Italian"!!!


Monday, August 29, 2011

Harvest Monday.............8/29/2011

Due to me not being very organized last week and the storm preparations, I didn't take many pictures of the harvests, here are a few.

I picked a lot of MWC tomatoes on Saturday before the storm. They will be dried for use over the winter.

A basket of goodies harvested from the plots before the storm.

My backyard harvest on Saturday

This is the kitchen island this morning.

Harvest total for the week: 42 lbs.

Beans, Purple Pole - 24 oz.
Cabbage, Red - 24 oz.
Cantaloupe - 73.5 oz.
Cucumbers:
    Slicing - 23 oz.
    Burr - 5 oz.
Eggplant - 20 oz.
Peppers:
    Bell - 31 oz.
    Hot & Spice - 42 oz.
Pumpkin, Fortna White - 152 oz.
Spaghetti Squash - 48 oz.
Sweet Dumpling Squash - 62.5 oz.
Tomatoes:
    Green - 42 oz.
    Red - 125 oz.

Stop by Daphne's Dandelions, our host of Harvest Monday, to see what's going on in Veggie Gardens around the globe!

Monday, August 8, 2011

Harvest Monday...........08/08/2011

The week started out good, everything was pretty much under control. I had some tomatoes to can, tomato juice to make and some peppers to freeze and roast.

This was my kichen island on Wednesday. The peppers were coming in at a steady pace and the tomatoes were not out of control.

I had a nice smaller harvest from the plots on Thursday. The eggplant are quite small this year. I did make a batch of Eggplant Caponata this week and canned it. I still need to make another batch or two to get us through the year. As you can see there's a Little Dumpling in this harvest. It was accidentally knocked off the vine  when I tried to move it. That's the second veggie that I did this to so far this year. From now on, I'm leaving them alone!

I really thought that this weeks harvest were going to remain small. My harvest totals for the week on Friday were about 28 lbs. Then we had a day of much needed rain on Saturday and look what I found at the home garden on Sunday!!

The biggest tomato of the season....maybe my life! A Pineapple, seed from Diana, weighing in at 2 lbs. 9.5 oz. Boy that's one big tomato!

Then I went to the plots and picked a ton of tomatoes, cantaloupe and peppers.

This is what the kitchen island looked like on Sunday and that wasn't all of the produce in the kitchen!! It turned out to be another great week of harvests around here!


Total Week's Harvest - 84.5 lbs

Blackberries - 14 oz.
Cantaloupe - 106.5 oz
Eggplant - 38 oz.
Peppers:
   Bell Sweet - 114 oz.
   Hot & Spice - 19 oz.
Squash - Little Dumpling - 8 oz.
Tomatoes - 1026.5 oz. (64.16 lbs)
Zucchini - 26 oz.

Stop by Daphne's Dandelions our host of Harvest Monday to see what's happening in Veggie Gardens and Garden Kitchens around the globe!

Sunday, August 7, 2011

A Nice Neighbor & A Bad Critter

The other day, I took my neighbor (the wine collector) three nice Heirloom Tomatoes....and look what he brought over

A bottle of wine! I'm thinking that I should just give them three at a time....maybe that way we can get stocked up in wine for the winter :)

This morning I went over to the plots. Of course, I didn't have my camera with me. I was just going to do a quick picking and get back home. It rained all day yesterday and we were supposed to have thunder storms off and on all day today. Well, I have a couple of plants that needed added support. Then I found that someone has been eating the bell peppers! Three of the ripe Pimento Peppers were completely eaten. There was nothing left but the tops on the plant. There were about a dozen more that were either completely eaten or mostly eaten! Then there were these

The pepper in the front is a Pimento. That one was not salvagable. The other peppers had just a little bite out of each one. Not all was lost. I gave these along with another 9 or so peppers to my mother in-law. She froze some and roasted the rest.

That critter also tried to eat 3 nice ripe cantaloupe! There were just a couple of teeth marks on them....so, I gathered them up and brought them home!

I did find the groundhog hole by the side of the cold frame. Now that I'm done doing the "can can" for the day, I have to go back over there and take care of that dang critter!


Monday, August 1, 2011

Harvest Monday........8/01/2011

The rain last Monday definitely put the tomatoes in full swing! Tuesday was the biggest overall tomato harvest day. The tomatoes harvested that day were the worst of the tomatoes this past week. Many were cracked, deformed and didn't want to ripen correctly....but, we love them anyway!

Here are some (not all) of the harvests from the past week.

Tuesday

Tuesday

Thursday

Saturday

Sunday

I think that you get the picture....We're up to our ears in tomatoes!! I think that "The Italian" will get his much needed 100 jars of tomatoes this year!!


Total weighed harvests this week: 106.0125 lbs!!

Cantaloupe (1st of the season) - 28 oz.
Carrots (last of the spring planting) - 9 oz
Eggplant:
   Lunga Violetta Di Firenze - 13 oz.
   Rosa Bianca - 30.5 oz.
Onions:
   Red - 51 oz.
   White - 36 oz.
Peppers:
   Corno Di Toro - 11 oz.
   Quadrato Rosso D'Asti - 7.2 oz.
   Paprika - 6 oz.
   Pimento - 11 oz.
   Jalapeno - 13 oz.
   Pepperoncini - 11 oz.
   Serrano - 11 oz.
Tomatoes - 1442 oz. - 90.125 lbs.
Zucchini - 20 oz.

Stop by Daphne's Dandelions our host of Harvest Monday to see what's going on in Veggie Gardens around the globe!!