Today's harvest

[pepperhead212]

More of the larger tomatoes are ripening, but unfortunately, something is attacking them, chewing holes in some of them. Even one barely ripening, had a hole in it. I don't know if it is a squirrel - I have a trap out there that I usually catch them in, but there has been only 3 birds in it lately. Maybe they are the ones chewing the holes in them.
The larger tomatoes really starting to ripen now! 7-8 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Mostly sunsugars ripening now, though sunrise is doing well, too. Picked a few rattlesnake beans, too. 7-8 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

I got a second bottle gourd today, too.
Second bottle gourd, 7-8. This one about 12 inches. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

I uncovered the Earthbox with the pepper maggot prone peppers in it, and got a few jalapeños. Only one I noticed on tbe Hanoi Markets, but they always start ripening in early August, so this is about normal. I dusted with DE, as a precautionary, though they seemed clean. I covered up again, until next time - have a little over 3 weeks, until I can remove it for good.
First jalapeno m peppers. 7-8 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Beans are starting to produce now, rattlesnake first, but blauhilde is close behind. And those Long Valor beans are growing like none I've seen before - pointed up! They are all loaded with flowers.

Rattlesnake starting to produce first. 7-8 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Long Valor beans, starting to produce. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

 

[larry_stewart]

Ive had birds get my tomatoes in the past, If they would just get one and finish it I wouldn't mind, but they peck a few holes in one, then off to the other, and so on. Often getting ones that are just starting to ripen, which leaves me not much to salvage. (tomato pic from a few years ago)

On a happier note, just picked my onions, leeks and a lot more cukes/ kirbies today.

 

[GotGarlic]

Larry, a lot of people I know are starting to pick tomatoes when they're partially ripe, to prevent the birds from getting them. As you know, they'll continue to ripen inside.

 

[taxlady]

I quit growing tomatoes. I got none for me. The squirrels ate them. They didn't even wait until they were ripe. Same goes for strawberries around here. I have a few herbs outside in pots. Usually nothing warm blooded bothers my herbs, but someone has been munching on my parsley and Chinese celery. I think I discovered the culprit. I saw a juvenile bunny a couple of days ago. In the nearly 30 years that I have lived here, I have only once before seen a rabbit.

 

[larry_stewart]

Larry, a lot of people I know are starting to pick tomatoes when they're partially ripe, to prevent the birds from getting them. As you know, they'll continue to ripen inside.

Unfortunately, It has a come to that. I try to let them vine ripen was long as I can, but once the birds figure it out, I start picking early.

They gave us aa few weeks of undisturbed blueberry picking , but once they found out they were ripe, gone the next day. ( eat least we had the few weeks).

They dont like red currants (or at least havnet found them yet)

 

[blissful]

Larry those tomatoes were butchered! Wow, the birds must be thirsty. Looks like the end of a tomato horror movie.


Our youngest son complains of birds eating the tomatoes in north dakota. We haven't had that here....and I'm not sure why exactly. I do keep a bucket of water for the birds, summer and winter (metal wok), and they visit all the time, not that far from the tomatoes.

 

[larry_stewart]

They only Gott my tomatoes that one year. A new mulberry tree popped up next to the garden and started producing, so they seem to be more interested in that.

the year after the great tomato slaughter, I put up nets around the tomatoes , but birds would get caught up in the net, making int away too easy for the cats, so I felt bad and took the nets down ( haven't put them up since). As of now, not too many pest ( insects, bird, small mammal ) issues this year.

 

[dragnlaw]

Mention of nets. I put them up on all the gardens, mainly to keep the cat out of them, which I didn't mind (my son gets grossed out,) but it was really to keep the dog out which would follow the cat...

I did worry about anything getting caught in them but so far (2 years) the only thing to get caught was a baby possum. Felt bad, but not so bad as to take them down.

I have opened them up now as the plants are starting to grow thru them (and that's a pain) plus the are big enuf not to be dug up. But have not had any problems with animals or birds now.

Biggest problem this year was a tree crashing onto everything.

edit: Actually, just to mention, where we put the garlic, I put the netting directly on the ground and then about an inch or so of mulch on top. Kept out the animals (squirrels/cats), garlic grew thru, no problems. But will have to lift the net to pull the garlic stems thru as bulbs won't fit. Should be fine as will want to turn garden and maybe add more mulch. - Work in progress.

 

[pepperhead212]

Man, am I glad I grow my own garlic! I just saw it on some tv show I happened to see part of, where the lady was at a farmer's market, and the garlic was $8.99/lb! I thought I had seen it wrong, but I rewound it to check, and I did see it right! I thought maybe it was another country, or something, but it was $ I saw. It was somewhere in New England, though I didn't leave it on to find out.

I got 4 ripening tomatoes off one of the Amish Gold Slicer plants, plus a good number of other tomatoes today, and no more with holes in them! I everything that had a hint of ripening, as I then sprayed them all with a peroxide solution - 1 c to 1 gal of water. Some varieties were showing signs of some disease - normal at this time of year, but not as bad as some years, because it's been relatively dry. I trimmed any bad sections while doing the harvest, then sprayed the tomatoes and all the cucurbits. I'll see if it does anything.
All Amish Gold Slicers from the same plant! Largest one on R 10.85 oz, next one 9.9 oz. 7-10 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Misc. tomatoes and eggplant. 7-10 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

That big top bitter melon is different from the number one, in that it just had the one that grew to full size, while others seem to just be waiting until that one is picked, before starting up again. The Armenian cucumber seems like that, too, as well as the bottle gourds, while the pickling melon has several growing at the same time, and not stopping, like the cucumbers.
First Big Top, and 3 more Number One bitter melons. 7-10 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

 

[blissful]

Larry, the year of the tomato slaughter....I needed to hear that.
Dragnlaw, we bought tulle or toile or netting. We used it on all our seedlings this year, to keep the rabbits from demolishing things. AND we have traps AND we have chipmunks, and we dispatch them, lately, almost daily.
But the netting really does help a lot. I just opened up a bunch of kale and root veggies we had netted, they are getting too big for the net.



Pepperhead, we sold garlic for about 4 years in the midwest (back 2009ish). Untreated, different varieties of hardnecks. $14/lb. A lot of people were starting garlic in those years and they often bought it for seed. Yes, we got $14/lb, crazy.

 

[dragnlaw]

So, your comments on garlic got me curious. I went to Walmart's OnLine shopping. These are really rough translations... it's not accurate as I'm not a mathematician. I'm using basically 1 k = 2 lb (as 16 oz per lb.)
Organic, $2.47 for 3 oz. = $13.12 for 1 lb.
sold as singles, 1 k bag for $10.93 = $5.47 for lb.
1 k bag for $4.88 = $2.44 for 1 lb
$.87 for a bag of 3 (no weight specified)

Talk about all over the place! or I'm really out with calculations!

 

[pepperhead212]

Seed garlic is a different story, and is always much more expensive; $8.99 would be cheap! This was just a farmer's market, with veggies for your kitchen.

I got 4 more cukes and 4 more okra (still slow for these) this morning. I saw something when cutting that okra that I've never seen in my garden - a hummingbird! It flew about a foot from me, and went up to the blossoms on the Mexican Sunflower (something I never grew before), and it was gone! I guess I never had anything with blossoms they like! Besides all the food plants, the only thing I've ever grown with blossoms are zinnias.

 

[dragnlaw]

I'm not understanding the phrase "seed" garlic. This is just garlic that you buy at the grocers. Does it make a difference if purchased at an open market?

 

[blissful]

"Seed" garlic.
The cloves of the bulb are planted as seed.
Seed garlic generally means, the LARGEST and most healthy garlic. No miss-shapened bulbs, average number of cloves/bulb for that particular garlic type.


As an example: We kept growing Russian Red. It has 3-4-5 cloves/bulb. Occasionally 2 cloves, occasionally 6 cloves.
First we cure them. Hang in the wind for a month.

Then we grade them. The seed comes from the largest bulbs w/4 cloves. There is no disease on these if disease exists in the crop. (mites, rotting, over ripe and splitting)

We use these 'seed' garlic as what we plant in October.


The rest we would call culinary garlic. The 'seed' garlic is just as good tasting, texture, aroma....it's just used for seed.

 

[pepperhead212]

dragnlaw, If you look up "seed garlic" you'll get a lot of companies that sell only garlic for planting. Some of it is already sold out, for this fall! Being the cheapskate I always am, I look for some deals, later on, when they lower prices, and buy a couple types, and maybe just plant my own, of one or two others.

I harvested 6 more eggplants today, plus some more tomatoes, a small number of okra, 3 more bitter melons, and the first Armenian Cucumber I've ever grown. It's almost exactly 12", and I wasn't sure when it becomes seedy, plus it seems only the one was growing much - several others had set, but only grew to 4-5", very slowly, so I figured that I'd pick the first, and see if that triggers any. The bottle gourds are like this, and when the largest is picked, another will start growing. This plant also has light colored leaves, like the bottle gourds, and long vines, that I have to keep under control! It's like indeterminate tomatoes!
First Armenian cucumber, about 12 inches long, plus a couple more Number One bitter melons. 7-11 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

I cut it in half crosswise, then lengthwise, and it looks like an English cucumber, with barely any seed development, so that size is still small, for this. I tasted it, with just a small amount of salt, and it tasted like a mild, burpless cucumber, with a slight sweetness; no aftertaste at all, like with some cucumbers. I cut it into sixths, lengthwise, leaving the seeds in (I usually scoop them out, for this type of pickle), and into 2" pieces, and put them in a qt jar, with ¼ tsp salt, and ¼ tsp calcium chloride (crispit), plus 3 tb each sugar and white vinegar. I just leave it in the jar, turning it upside down, and back again, when I walk by it in the kitchen. Everything is dissolved quickly, and eventually it goes in the fridge, and tomorrow I'll sample it.
First Armenian Cucumber, cut in half, 7-11 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

First Armenian Cucumber, halved lengthwise, showing little seed growth. 7-11 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

First Armenian Cucumber, made into a quick pickle, leaving the seeds in. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

Another thing that I harvested the first time this year was the squash blossoms, on all those butternut plants! I also have 6 fruits formed on the 6 large vines (this variety always seems to set one per vine early, then a bunch late in the season. Also saw 4 started on 3 "Butterbush" plants - an early variety. All have countless more unopened male blossoms!
First squash blossom harvest, 7-11 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

 

[larry_stewart]

Anyone else having issues with peppers this year ? Usually peppers are one of my slam dunk crops, but this year they are not thriving. The smaller peppers are doing ok, but the large ones are not doing great. I actually bought a few more pepper plants this past week so I dont get shut out.

 

[pepperhead212]

Only problem I have is one of 3 aruna peppers that has sort of a wilted look, next to two others looking fine! Yet it is still loaded with peppers. Had trouble with some seed starting, but that's another story - the rest look great now, though there are no large ones.
Santaka Thai peppers, loaded, and just started to ripen, 7-13 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

 

[blissful]

We took out our garlic today, 260 bulbs

Hung to dry, out of the sun, in the wind.

 

[pepperhead212]

Great garlic, blissful! Never too much garlic!

I had some more of those odd veggie harvests today - those bitter melons the most productive, though the round Big Top is still the slowest. Those Sambar cucumbers also aren't real productive, and it's well over 60 days from planting - the WS 58 are on their way out already, but the County Fair are just starting to produce, and those are the first two. Those green Hari eggplant are more heat resistant than the others. I got another bottle gourd, I didn't put in the photo. Only picked 3 more tomatillos, because they were turning brown, but the tomatillos were green under the husk. The peppers were the arunas that were on that plant I pulled out. No tomatoes, but there were plenty ripening! I'll get them tomorrow.
Misc. harvests, 7-17 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

 

[larry_stewart]

Garlic looks great Bliss.
Nice variety Pepper.
Today I picked a bunch of chard this morning
Plan on making some spanakopita with it.