Today's harvest

[larry_stewart]

Nice harvest and varieties.
So far only one of my tomatoes have succumb to some kind of fungus. Not sure of the exact name, but it was a yellow pear shaped grape tomato. First year growing it. I want to add variety in shape and color to my tomatoes, but unfortunately the vine was slowly turning yellow and leaves withering. I picked what I could and removed the vine to keep whatever may have been going on from spreading. Yesterday I picked my first large variety ( a few days early to beat thee birds to it). Im waiting for my first bountiful Big tomato harvest so I can start saucing them. Probably a week away. My tomatoes seem to be about 1 week behind last year, and my okra about 2 weeks. String beens, harvested a few quarts and now I see no flowers at all on the first planing. The plants look healthy , but definitely not as productive as in the past. Not sure if it was a rain/ heat thing. Second planting flowering now and just started a third planting. ( will likely rip up the first plants that seem to have stopped to make room for something else).

 

[larry_stewart]

Harvested another dozen or so kirbies. Boston Pickler variety. If you pick them young they are good for pickling, the more mature ones are more cucumbery ( if thats a word). A little to big for my ideal pickling, but its what I had to get after my little leaf failure. Once again, I must say that I have about 1/2 the vines I usually have ( due to late start) but thy are producing a decent amount, and still no obvious pest or disease issue. I think I was over crowding them in the past ( in addition to the insect invasion). Lesson learned for next year.

 

[Bitser]

I was eating sugar peas off the vine. Then there was a big thunderclap and it started to rain.

I kept thinking: Just one more.

Got pretty well soaked.

 

[pepperhead212]

I only harvested eggplants today, since that was one thing I didn't look at yesterday. Oh yeah, another of those bottle gourds lost in the vines.
15 eggplants, and one bottle gourd, 7-23 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

I made some B&B pickles today, using up a bunch of those cukes, and a lot of onions (I love the pickled onions in these). I did this today because it was actually not bad out, with low humidity, and I don't like to boil vinegar in my air conditioned house!
Bread and butter pickles, using 12 cukes and 5 large onions, 7-23 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

 

[dragnlaw]

what's the white powder? Saw it on an earlier picture of your tomatoes too.

 

[bethzaring]

My first calabacita squash!!!!

 

[pepperhead212]

My first calabacita squash!!!!

Great! Many of my butternuts, and that tetsukabuto (sp?) are ripening already, though most will be much later.

what's the white powder? Saw it on an earlier picture of your tomatoes too.

That is Surround, made of kaolin clay - something that some insects are repelled by the feel of, and is not poisonous at all. It wipes off easily, but doesn't actually rinse off, the way diatomaceous earth does. This is why I try not to get it on small things, like cherry tomatoes and hot peppers - too much of a pain to wipe off every one.

 

[larry_stewart]

A last years red onion that survived and grew. Bottom was a little soft so I cut it off. The rest is perfect. 8 Ball zucchini and a sweet red pepper. Not sure of the variety, cause I grew all new varieties this year. Ill check tomorrow. Its about 9 inches long, sweet, firm and thick flesh.

 

[pepperhead212]

My tomatillos started getting full sized today. A lot more tomatoes, too, and a couple more cukes and bitter melons.
Most of the harvest for 7-24. Tomatillos just starting to get full sized! by pepperhead212, on Flickr

I cleaned up a lot of my dead tomato leaves and branches, and pulled out my totally browned dill plants - I only save a small portion of the seeds, as there's only a few I have to grow, and the seeds I grow aren't as good as the seeds I buy - probably different varieties better for the seed spice.

 

[bethzaring]

Fresh berries from my and my sisters' garden..This is my favorite time of the year, watching over her garden while they are back East for 3 weeks. And about 6 pounds of onions. I am getting ready for my first batch of caramelized onions to can. Will put them in the crockpot tonight and can them in the morning.

 

[larry_stewart]

Fresh berries from my and my sisters' garden..This is my favorite time of the year, watching over her garden while they are back East for 3 weeks. And about 6 pounds of onions. I am getting ready for my first batch of caramelized onions to can. Will put them in the crockpot tonight and can them in the morning.

The onions look great!

Bombarded with cukes.

My daughter came up for the weekend. Sent her home with Potatoes, cukes, garlic, onions and peppers from the garden ( along with a quart of home made vegetable soup, which had string beans from the garden).

 

[pepperhead212]

It's capsaicin day! I could have picked even more - as you can see, that Death Spiral has one ripe one, and there are a couple more Paper Lantern habaneros ready.
Death Spiral, starting to ripen. 7-27 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Another Death Spiral, beginning to ripen. 7-27 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Paper Lantern Habaneros ripening. 7-27 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Here's a bunch of habaneros I harvested today:
A lot of Gold Bullet Habaneros, plus 3 chococolates and one Paper Lantern. Plus one kohlrabi. 7-27 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

I got a few more tomatoes and cukes, but these were the main things I was thinking of, with those and other peppers starting to ripen big time. It's that time!

 

[larry_stewart]

Did one of the many daily strolls through the yard this morning, and noticed one of my dwarf peach trees looked a little beaten up, with 50+ peaches on the ground around it. It wasn't like this yesterday. A few of the peaches on the ground a bites in them. Im pretty sure it was raccoons , since they had their way with a larger peach tree last year, leaving peach pits scattered all over my patio ( after they devoured them). I was actually impressed by how efficient they were getting the fruit off the pit. When I was weeding this year in that area, I was like ' all these weeds look the same, I wonder what they are.' Sure enough , I had a few dozen , self ( or raccoon) planted peach trees growing around the patio. I dug up and potted a few. The rest got plucked.

Anyway, back to the peaches. Last year I picked them about this time. Although most of them still needed more time to fully develop, there still was a decent percentage that I know will ripen off the tree. Too protect the tree from further attack and potential damage, and just out of spite to the raccoons, I picked everything. I figure I'd rather get a percentage of something, that a percentage of nothing. Just got to hope the raccoons dont move on to the apple tree.

 

[taxlady]

Larry, sorry to read about the damage to your peach tree. I'm pretty sure you can make chutney with under ripe peaches. I used to make peach chutney from a Joy of Cooking recipe for "mango (or peach) chutney". It was really good.

 

[dragnlaw]

consequences

I second taxy's suggestion of chutney or even just a jam. Yuh's got lots!

We covered the planted gardens with nylon netting (Amazon). To prevent the squirrel digging up either seeds or chewing on new growth. Seem to work fine and I was contemplating taking them down.

Next morning discovered a small opossum strangled in the netting. I know they can be a pest but I'm sorry it happened.

Had forgotten we even had opossum here. Not sure they are in Quebec where I lived.

That being said, Larry, netting over your fruit trees might be an option.

 

[bethzaring]

Prepping for tomorrow's second round of canning caramelized onions.

 

[blissful]

This thread gets so unwieldy. The extra large pictures take so long to load the quick reply doesn't even load until they are done.


Beth, I think I made your caramelized onions recipe a couple years ago. They had a little butter in them and you made them in the crock pot, right?


We harvested 20 shiro plums, woo hoo. This is Wisconsin, so we have 5 redorta tomatoes finally ripening! First of our season. 5 types of tomatoes, tomesol, redorta, roma, san marzano, and amish paste are in this year's roster.

 

[blissful]

Larry, we bought some netting for the cherry tree last year. It came in a 45 ft length, which we cut. Now this year we didn't need it for cherries, but had it available. We used a portion and continue to use it over the strawberry raised bed to keep the birds off of them. It's not expensive and it keeps from year to year.

 

[larry_stewart]

I netted my tomatoes last year to keep the birds away. Honestly didnt think id get so many peaches . last year we got 3, and then I got lazy. I probably should have plucked a bunch early on, as the weight of the fruit was clearly having an impact on the tiny tree.

 

[bethzaring]

This thread gets so unwieldy. The extra large pictures take so long to load the quick reply doesn't even load until they are done.


Beth, I think I made your caramelized onions recipe a couple years ago. They had a little butter in them and you made them in the crock pot, right?

.

Here you go Bliss. There really is only one recipe on the Internet for canning caramelized onions. But this year I found a couple of youtubes that add a few extra ingredients. I put butter, salt pepper, brown sugar and Worcestershire sauce. I recently found a hand crafted Worcestershire sauce that I would add to these onions...Lea and Perrins, not so much.

And no ripe tomatoes here yet, only one showing any color.