Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Garden Bounty?

The garden has been slow going this year, with the hard winter, late spring, and cooler weather the last two weeks.  I've loved the nice weather, but my tomato plants haven't.  I was talking to some of the farmers at the market, and they explained that it's not the sunshine but the actual heat that tomatoes need to turn red.  That would explain why I've got loads of green tomatoes, but until today none even looked like they would think about changing color.  It got hot yesterday, and it's heating up again today, so it looks like I'll have tomatoes ripe by the end of the week.
Other produce is doing ok.  Here are my first gathering of Golden Crescent Beans:

There aren't very many ripe right now, but lots of small ones are growing, so I plan to have more soon.  We also harvested 2 zucchini, which quickly became chocolate zucchini bread. The zucchini plants are looking diseased, though, so I sprayed them with milk and water and am hoping for the best.  The herbs are looking good, especially the basil:


I have another pot of basil, too.  I made some yummy pesto, which we ate on sandwiches and in a nice "green eggs" quiche.  I also have fresh oregano, parsley, dill, cilantro, and sage, although I haven't done much with those.  I kept hoping for tomatoes or tomatillos to be ready at the same time as the cilantro, but it doesn't look like that will work out, as the cilantro is ready to bolt.  Maybe I'll plant more and get lucky.  We did eat a couple of small green peppers on Nathaniel's awesome shish kebobs Sunday.  And I have 3 cantaloupes growing nicely!!!  Also, the pumpkin plants are growing, with one tiny pumpkin so far.  We also have some tiny cucumbers, so that will make Elijah particularly happy.  My Bulgarian peppers look great, long and green, but I imagine it will be a while before they turn red, and I want to try them "right" so we are impatiently waiting.  

Originally, I had hoped to have tons of food from the garden by now.  That obviously didn't work out so well, but we are getting some, and we have been able to supplement with some from our garden club school garden, where we picked a cabbage, peppers, zucchini, and 3 carrots yesterday.  I am really thankful that we don't have to rely on only what we can produce, because pickings would be pretty slim around here this year!

No comments:

Post a Comment