Today's harvest

[blissful]

When we see our tomato leaves suffering, it's almost always fungus. We spray with fungicide.
The heat has been over 85 deg F for many days, the pollen gets sticky and the flowers might not be able to pollinate. If you have a small paintbrush you can brush all your flowers for better pollination. The heat is probably more of a problem that we can't do anything about it.
I think we'll try to brush all our flowers and since it seemed to work in past years it might help this year too.
Another problem with the heat, deformities of the tomatoes happen. Things sticking out of the tomato like appendages, always happens during a hot summer.

 

[blissful]

Our last mutant tomatoes from 2019.

 

[pepperhead212]

I went out briefly today, and picked a few more eggplants, and more tomatoes are ripening, but I'm seeing fewer blossoms on most of them, due to the heat, I assume. Now it's time for me to cut up those eggplants, for the dehydrator.

The peppers are loving the heat, and a couple of varieties are just starting to ripen. I'm surprised that the okra isn't responding the same way to the heat, as they usually like it like the peppers.

Here are those eggplants cut up, and in the dehydrator. And a photo showing the LA Long Green, and how it got seedy, when only 4-5" long, while the Choryoku not at all seedy, when picked more than twice as long. I also found that happened with the Batak - a purple, skinny variety, that doesn't get much longer than 7-8", and even then, it was seedy, though not bitter. And the Ichiban was the largest, but not one was getting seedy yet.
the LA Long Green, showing the seedy slices, compared to Choruoku Green. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

4 shelves of the eggplants, ready to dehydrate. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

 

[larry_stewart]

First time , in a few years, that I have gotten decent eggplants with no bugs in them. I usually by the plants ( which I did for the Ichiban variety), but this year I got a free package of the Chinese String Eggplants, so I figured, let me give it a try. I never grew eggplants from seed before. I always thought they would be a pain in the butt to germinate. These came up with no issues at all. The picture on the seed packet was deceiving . When they are young, they are shaped like a hot pepper, so I assumed that was how big they got ( without carefully reading the back of the packet). I was kinda busy this week, so although I knew it was there on the plant, I let it go til I was ready to use it ( didnt want it to spoil in the fridge, I figure Mother Nature would do a better job keeping it fresh on the plant). When I picked it, it was about 1 foot long, nice texture, no bitterness at all. I will definitely be growing this again next year , as long as the plant is productive. But in the pic, thats more eggplants I've gotten in years. Usually I get them, but there is almost always a surprised bug smack in the middle of the eggplant. I check the outside for holes, entrance points, bite marks ... but nothing. To this day Im still stumped how they got in there.

 

[dragnlaw]

Maybe the flower, after germination, closed up around it?

 

[pepperhead212]

Fortunately, I never have a problem with bugs in my eggplants. Maybe it's something, like the pepper maggot flies, like I get with certain varieties, that lay minute, pin-head sized eggs on the peppers, and even if harvested full sized, but unripe, the maggots are still minute, but once ripe, they are large enough to find, and the peppers are starting to rot. I don't know what eggplants are prone to like this.

Here are those dehydrated eggplants, 84 oz, down to 7.45 oz, and about a half gallon, so a lb reduces to about 1.42 oz, which is about normal for dehydrated eggplants.
84 oz eggplant dehydrated to 7.45 oz. About 1.42 oz/lb, which is right around normal. by pepperhead212, on Flickr

 

[larry_stewart]

Picked a bunch of Achocha today. I came across this veggie last year, when I went to an Eastern European restaurant in Canada. Pickled Achocha was offered as a side dish. Having never heard of it before, I knew I definitely wanted to try it. Described on the menu as " A unique achocha vegetable pods considered as a forgotten Peruvian Inca's crop.". Threw me off a bit since it was an Eastern European restaurant , serving a Peruvian Inca Veggie, although the pickled part made sense. It didnt taste much different than any other veggie that was pickled, but still new and unique enough for me to grow and play around with. The plant is a vining plant that grows faster than any plant I've had in my garden, taking over anything in its way. If you ever want to fill a trellis with greenery quickly, this is the plant. When I saw the first one ripen ( like cukes, can be eaten at any stage), I tasted it, and as described online, it has a mild cucumber flavor, with kind of a pepper like consistency ( a little softer). Seeds are hard, so as the achocha gets bigger, you need to scoop out the seeds. They also develop little spikes ( like cukes) as they get bigger. At full size, they are about the size of a jalapeño pepper. Anyway, I pickled the few I picked to see how they come out. I likely wont grow them again. due to the amount of space they take up and their unruliness, but it was fun. If the pickled ones taste great, then I would grow again. The pickled pic is from the restaurant last year, the other pics are my harvest.

 

[pepperhead212]

I looked into growing those achochas way back, but when I read that they were more adapted to cooler areas, I figured they wouldn't do well here! I'm glad you are getting some production.

 

[larry_stewart]

I looked into growing those achochas way back, but when I read that they were more adapted to cooler areas, I figured they wouldn't do well here! I'm glad you are getting some production.

More plant than fruit, but still kinda cool. One of the vines is like 15 feet long, growing up the trellis, across an arbor and up a tree....

 

[blissful]

My first zucchini and 3 yellow summer squash today.
We harvested the garlic, 350-400 bulbs, we lost count a few times. It's a really good year for us. We hung them up to dry outside in the shade, in the breeze.

 

[pepperhead212]

I've been harvesting a quart to a quart and a half daily, to build up the tomatoes for those dinners. Today was 3 days worth, due to the rain, and a generous number are ripening on all of them. Even some of those dead Red Brandywine tomatoes are turning red - I'll see if all of them turn.
over 3 qts of mostly smaller tomatoes, 7-17 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

The larger tomatoes coming in now, the largest ones the Hippie Zepras. 7-17 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

I also picked a few cukes and eggplants:
Cucumbers and eggplants, 7-17 by pepperhead212, on Flickr

 

[blissful]

I pollinated my tomatoes with a paint brush yesterday, and we tore out about 1/4th foliage at the bottom and anything trailing down, to avoid the fungal disease that kills the plants every fall. It won't avoid it completely but it will slow it down w/some fungicide.

4 gallons of tightly packed fresh kale, squash leaves, and purslane. Cleaning, steaming, chopping, freezing to can. (once I get 5 steamers of it full)

 

[bethzaring]

Due to the heat, it took me three days to harvest the garlic. I had planted 400 cloves last fall but have been nibbling for a month now. I have not succeeded in cutting back on my vegetable plantings. I am getting too old for this! I always end up with shriveled unusable garlic every winter/spring so I am doing something different this year. The trimmed garlic on the table inside, will shortly be dehydrated and ground into powder. That will be 73 bulbs that will not go to waste.

 

[Marlingardener]

Bethzaring, welcome to the gardener's overplanting club! I overplant garlic, along with most everything else. I freeze cloves after peeling off the outer paper. Packing a small plastic bag with garlic cloves that can be removed as needed sure is convenient.
I don't have a dehydrator, but I'd bet your garlic powder will be so much better than store-bought!

 

[blissful]

We are currently almost overplanters. We're in our 60's and 70's but still keep up with big gardens by dehydrating/canning/freezing. What's made a big difference is rolling out and pinning down landscape fabric that we cut holes in for planting, which cut our weeding by 95%. We only weed in the hole where the plant is, a 3 inch hole or 6 inch hole. That's it. Water goes right through it.

Our neighbor across the court was always a big gardener. He's in his 80's but gave it up 2 years ago because his wife is now in a wheel chair. He came to see our gardens the other day. I don't think he's seen a garden with landscape fabric before, he was mightily impressed. Maybe he'll go back to gardening, smaller but I know he likes his fresh produce. We'll be sharing with him for now.
At the end of the season, the landscape fabric is pulled up, turned over, let dry, sweep it off, and roll it up. It is a good quality one said to last 20 years. We're on year 7 now.

Our garlic was planted in landscape fabric, and harvested through it. We just put beans in it yesterday, in the same holes. Holes are every 8 inches, or for tomatoes every 2-3 feet, so each panel is for a specific type of planting. There's usually more than one type of plant that can go into each panel once it is cut.

 

[dragnlaw]

Did not know that bliss, Thank You!

 

[blissful]

By the end of the season many of the areas on landscape fabric all you can see are plants, but right now you can see the fabric.

 

[Kathleen]

Notta-Acre Farms (aka my tiny yard) yielded another mess of beans and enough cucumbers to make a few pints of hamburger dills.

 

[larry_stewart]

Picked peaches the other day. Last year about a week before I was ready to pick them, a raccoon climbed up the ( small) tree and knocked almost ll of them to tthe ground, breaking many small branches in the process. Then the raccoon, along with a squirrel, took bites out of each and every one, leaving me none to salvage. This year, with that knowledge, I tried to stay one step ahead of them.

 

[dragnlaw]

I've actually started getting snow peas to pick. The sugar peas are coming along. Did I mention I got the beds mixed up? Snow in one and sugar in the other so put the climbing wires in the wrong one. Snow peas are all over the ground making it very awkward to harvest. Sugar peas, which were supposed to be low growing are in a contest with Jack's Bean Stalk. 2nd planting never got in, sigh. Guess I could still try. Will see, maybe if the rain holds off.

The garlic, that my son swears he only put in ab out an inch down (or he admits maybe 2"), when I dug them out, were at least 7 to 8" down. Have to dig, couldn't just pull those suckers up!