Fall = garlic planting time

No vampires will be in my garden this winter. With the help of my fiancé, I planted 56 Music and 53 Duganski garlic cloves.

Burrrr

It was a cold one last night.  We got our first frost of the season. Unfortunately, I didn't get a chance to protect the raised beds before the cold weather hit.  Alas, summer is over and it is time to take down the rest of the garden until next year.

First and third - best in show next year!

I decided, less than two days before the deadline, to submit some of my home preserved foods to our local county fair. I have never done something like this before. I had no clue what the rules were. BUT, I did have a lot of jellies and sauces preserved from this year's harvest so I decided, what the heck, I am going to submit something.

Last day of summer

Today marks the last day of summer. With this end, I harvested the last of the tomatoes and green beans before removing the spent plants. I held on to these sad looking plants because I was just dying to get 13 more pounds of produce out of the garden to bring my grand total to 400 lbs.  I wonder if I succeeded?  Time to weigh the harvest. Drumroll please...

Justice has been served

The proof is below:

Dead hornworm

It looks like the wasp eggs have moved from the dried portion to the more supple portion of the hornworm's body.  Very interesting.

To kill or not to kill, that is the question

I spent some time in the garden today, harvesting a jackpots worth of cherry tomatoes when I came across THIS:

Tomato Hornworm
Tomato Hornworms feed on the leaves, stems, and fruits of the tomato plant, causing extensive crop damage. 

YIKES!  My first Tomato Hornworm!  

I probably would not have seen the Hornworm if it weren't for the white specks of rice-looking projections covering its body. Part of me wanted to use my clippers to slice this pest in half to kill it (sick, I know). But, the other part of me knew to save its life because it was only a matter of time before mother nature took care of this for me (hahaha). You see, these white projections are actually wasp eggs from the braconid wasp, Cotesia congregatus, which parasitize the Hornworm. The wasps will kill the Hornworm and will seek out other Hornworms to parasitize. So this guy gets to live another day while the wasps work their magic.

Daylight is getting shorter and shorter

When I was a kid, I knew summer was over when I could hear the street lights start to buzz after a long night of playing outside. It used to feel like forever before this happened early enough for me to care. As an adult, there are just not enough hours of daylight to garden after Labor Day.

This evening, I spent some time in the garden...ripping out tomato plants, harvesting soybeans, and pulling some of the "big weeds." I certainly wasn't finished with any of my garden chores by the time I looked up and it was pitch black outside. So I carried my harvests to the house only to find out it was 8 pm! Really? I knew I wasn't in the garden long but it didn't seem like it was only 8 pm. Since the amount of daylight is getting shorter, I will have to spend more time on the weekends cleaning and prepping for the fall garden.

The hose is MY rain dance

We are getting a nice rain after not having a drop of water fall from the sky in the last couple of weeks. It seems that whenever I turn on the hose to water the gardens, about 2-3 hours later we get rain. I guess the hose is my rain dance.

ENDINGS and BEGINNINGS

Alas, all good things must come to an end.  It appears that tomato season is wrapping up at our house. For 4 weeks (all of July), the tomato harvest averaged about 5-6 lbs per day. But over the last two days, I have only harvested an average 1.3 lbs. Now you might think I am a bit premature in my proclamation that tomato season is coming to an end. But, there is a definite trend in the amount of tomatoes harvested per day, especially when taking into consideration how shabby the plants look. There are still a number of tomatoes still on the plants and provided that the stink bugs don't go sucking on the fruits of the plant, I will manage to continue harvesting tomatoes until the end of August.

When one thing ends, another begins. Today I started the fall garden. Oh yes folks, there is no time wasted here. Time is money. Err...wait, I don't make any money doing this....

Now comes the challenge: balancing yield (or lack there of) and valuable real estate space to determine when the best time is to cut my losses and pull out the dying plants to make room for the next crop. With that in mind, I started seeds (indoors) for the following cold weather vegetables today:

Something happened in the garden...

As I watered the bean plants this morning, I began noticing long strands of light colored pods dropping down from thin stems branching off the twisted vines of the pole beans. WOW! The pole beans have formed and are 9-12 inches long! While I have been waiting for over 2 months for the pole beans to be ready, the formation of the green beans has happened over the last couple of days. 

Is it ready yet??

Sugar Baby Watermelon - is it ready yet?

For at least the past month, I have been watching and waiting in anticipation for the day to come when I could harvest my first Sugar Baby watermelon of the season.  


For the last month, the melons looked deceivingly ready to harvest - dull skin, large and heavy for its size, the rind was hard to "poke" with my fingernail, and the hollow sound that everyone talks about was loud and clear. It is no wonder that last week it crossed my mind (several times) to take a risk and try harvesting one of the watermelons.  

200 lbs

Today I broke 200 lbs...exactly 2 weeks after harvesting 100 lbs of produce. I have to say that the majority of the harvest have been tomatoes, especially after losing the zucchini and cucumbers to the otherside.

I harvested the remainder of the onions yesterday evening and once cured, I will weigh those to see how well they did. I don't think I will grow Copra onions again. They are only slightly larger than a golf ball. But I do want a good yellow storage onion so the hunt begins for a better Copra. I am loving the Walla Walla onions and will definitely be planting those again.

I checked on the watermelon today and it looks like I can start harvesting them towards the end of the week. Finally. The craziness of farming is that all 7 watermelon will be ready about the same time. Guess I won't need any watermelon any time soon. I hope that the weather cooperates and the plants start producing more flowers so I can get some watermelon in mid-end of September. Fingers-crossed.

Swimming...No, Drowning in Tomatoes

Perhaps I planted too many tomato plants.  Perhaps.  

Over the last 3 weeks, I have harvested over 150 lbs of tomatoes.  So far, I have made:

1. Salsa 
2. Brushetta
3. Marinara sauce
4. Pasta sauce with meat 
5. Pasta sauce (veggie)
6. Lasagna
7. Caprese salad
8. Tomato ricotta tart
9. Homemade ketchup
10. Homemade BBQ sauce (sweet and savory)
11. Grilled cheese with tomato on rye
12. Garden salad
13. Margherita Pizza
14. Sun-dried tomatoes
15. Tomato and mayo sandwiches with feta cheese and sweet onions
16. BLTs

I have also given away a fair share of tomatoes to friends, neighbors, and co-workers.  Some people have commented that I should set up a "farm" stand and sell my produce.  After seeing the price of tomatoes at the grocery store today ($2.49/lb), I should seriously consider doing this to support my farming habit...ahem, supplement my income.

Interim Report

Since we are keeping track, let's see where we are mid-season...

• Squash Vine Borers - 2
• Cucumber beetles (stripped and spotted) - 10
• Squash Bugs - 0
• "Violent" thunder storm - 1
• Blossom End Rot - 20
• Rabbits - 8
• Slugs - 0
• Me?

Haha...I broke 100 lbs today! That is right. My garden has produced over 100 lbs of produce as of today (103.1 lbs to be exact). That is not including lettuce, herbs, garlic bulbs, onions harvested for fresh use or any vegetable lost due to disease, pest damage, or rot. 

The Onion You Can Eat Like an Apple

Walla Walla Onions

Success! Walla Walla onions are ready to harvest. The onions ranged from baseball to softball size and are perfect specimens.  

Walla Walla onions are sweet onions with paper-thin skins that will not make you teary-eyed when you slice into them.  Unfortunately, Walla Walla onions will not store very well and must be used within about 6 weeks of harvest (when stored in the refrigerator).  

Due to this short storage time, I am harvesting only what I can use within a week's time span. I wonder how long I can post-pone the harvest of all these tasty onions.

Blossom End Rot

A visit to the garden today revealed a number of tomatoes with Blossom End Rot - sunken leathery/rotten patches on the bottom of the fruit (the blossom end). I am not too concerned as it does not spread to other fruits on the same or different plants.

Blossom End Rot is caused by a calcium deficiency. It is likely due to the extremely high temperatures and the lack of rain we have been experiencing the last couple of weeks. To help combat this problem, I removed the affected fruits and watered the garden with a little Miracle Gro Bloom Booster (15-30-15). This week's 80 degree temperatures should give all the plants in the garden some time to recover. Now, time to do a rain dance.  

Blossom End Rot on Tomatoes
(pepper with sunburn)

Spaghetti Squash UPDATE

Squash Vine Borer (enjoying his last meal) 

Squash Vine Borer

A little surgical extraction on the spaghetti squash revealed the culprit that caused the demise of the spaghetti squash - a single squash vine borer larva. I have read about the squash vine borer but I believe this is the first time I have encountered this little bugger. As you can see in these pictures, the larva feeds through the center of the stem - killing the plant by cutting off its water supply. The orangish-colored "sawdust" looking material just below the larva is called Frass...essentially, larva poop. A new word for you to use the next time you play Words with Friends or Scrabble.

Spaghetti Squash

I am not the biggest fan of spaghetti squash but my clean eating mother-in-law gave me a seedling to transplant in the garden during her visit in May. Surprisingly, the seedling survived being packed in a suitcase, an hour flight from NY to MD, and a one and a half hour car ride before being safely transplanted into growing medium before being transplanted out into the garden. But not everything that starts well, ends well.

Full production

Today's bounty
Cherry tomatoes, Big Boy tomato, Big Rainbow tomato (Back left to right)
Zucchini, Bush Green Beans, Pickling Cucumbers (Middle left to right)
Roma tomatoes (Front middle)

Yay! My garden is in full production! To date, I have harvest over 22 lbs of produce (not including lettuce, herbs, onions that were not dried, or garlic bulbs - or any vegetable lost due to disease, pest damage, or rot). I can no longer go out to the garden with just my bare hands to harvest the day's fruits. Today I had to bring out the small harvesting bucket to help carry everything back to the house.  

First Storm of the Season

After a two weeks of 95-105oF temperatures and no rain, last night we had our first "severe" thunderstorm storm of the season. The gust of wind were over 75 miles per hour and the hail and rain were pounding down hard on us for about 2 hours. While we lost electricity for over 12 hours, we were grateful that the power came back on before the next day's heat peaked. 


How did my garden fair?  


From my house, I could see that the pole beans were knocked over and a few of the tomato cages were slightly tilted. The damage was a little worse than what I could see when looking out the window. Tomato plants were ripped out of the ground by the weight of their monstrous size (over 6'), their cages twisted to the point where they don't stay in the ground, the tops of onions were pushed to the ground, soybeans and green beans were crushed by the weight of the fallen tomato plants, and we lost two more apples. Though I think my garden looks ugly and messy right now, I guess it could have been worse. Hopefully everything bounces back and everything starts to look normal again.

Tomatoes have arrived...and they are delicious!

Cherry Tomatoes

That's right suckers! I harvested the first cherry tomatoes of the season today.  Woohoo! By Thursday the latest, if the rabbits do not get them first, I will have 3-4 large tomatoes to harvest (Roma and Better Boys). Yummy yum yum!  Tomato season has begun!

Today was THE Day

Today was the day! After months of anticipation, weeks of speculation, and hours of digging (ok, maybe that was an exaggeration), I finally harvested 45 large garlic bulbs from my garden. 

Freshly Harvest Garlic

I probably could have harvested the garlic a week or two earlier, but we had some rain and I wanted to give the bulbs a little extra time to begin drying out. Since my plan is not to use all the garlic bulbs in the next 3-4 weeks, I am curing the garlic so it can be used throughout the year.  

After carefully digging each plant loose from the soil using a sturdy garden fork, I gently tapped off the majority of the soil from the bulbs and roots. Next, I layered the garlic, with all their leaves still attached, onto an old bath towel in a warm/dry spot, protected from sunlight (my garage). The plants will stay there for 1-2 weeks to dry**. After this time, the leaves should all be dead. Once this occurs, I will trim off the dead leaves (leaving about 4-5 inches of stem), clip the long roots to about 1-2 inches in length), dust off the excess dirt that remains on the bulbs, and return the garlic to the towel in the garage. After 1-2 weeks, I will transfer the bulbs to a cool/dry spot (my basement) to finish the curing process (and where I store the bulbs for future use).

Post-trimming of Garlic

** WARNING: if you don't like the smell of garlic, you may want to find a shady spot outdoors to do this step (examples: outdoor shed or barn).

Invasion

Spotted Cucumber Beetle 

This week, cucumber beetles, mexican bean beetles, japanese beetles, and squash bugs have begun their invasion of my succulent fruits. To help control these savage beasts, I strategically placed several sticky traps around the most susceptible crops - cucumbers and zucchini. These traps are helping a little bit but yesterday I had to bring out slightly heavier artillery. I sprayed the bush and pole beans, cucumber, zucchini, and raspberry plants with some organic Safer brand Tomato and Vegetable Insect "Killer." This didn't do much in the last 24 hours so today I spent some time plucking the insects off the plants and dropping them into a dish detergent and water solution. I will do the same tomorrow as well. Hopefully I can hold off a few more weeks from applying stronger (non-organic) chemicals.  

    

Day length and onion bulbs

Walla Walla Onions

This year is my first year growing onions in my garden. While I am not expecting softball size onions my first year, all three varieties (Red Zeppelin, Walla Walla, and Copra) are looking great.  

Here is a picture of a rapidly expanding Walla Walla onion. These were grown from transplants purchased from Johnny's Seeds. With the longer days of June, the onions are looking beautiful, healthy, and are forming bulbs.  

I will have to start some Walla Walla's from seed in August to over-winter. I have read that growing the onions over the winter makes this already sweet onion, even sweeter. I will let you know next year if there is a difference ;) 

Lost Fruits

I learned a very important lesson today - trellis and cage vegetable plants when they are young, small, and before they have begun to fruit. Otherwise, you will have a few casualties...

Green Cherry Tomatoes

First summer harvest

Yippy! Today I harvested the first of the summer produce - just over 1 lb of zucchini, a handful of green beans, and a single jalapeño pepper.    

Zucchini

Bush Green Beans

Pruning Tomato Plants

My tomato plants are growing vigorously at over 4 feet tall and 2 feet wide. I noticed that some of the plants were extremely bushy, to the point where I couldn't even reach my hand in to grab a tomato if one were ready to be picked. The lower leaves were also blanketing the ground and covered with dirt from water splashing on the leaves. So, to minimize fungal diseases causes by poor air circulation, I pruned the lower branches of all the tomato plants as well as a few branches within the plants that were inhibiting the growth of tomatoes on the vines. The tomatoes are going to be even happier after this "light" pruning.

Careful:  WIDE load

Branches too close to ground 
and needing to be pruned

Post-pruning

Destructive Rabbits

Damn rabbits had a field day in the vegetable gardens today. A family of 5 rabbits pulled the lower leaves from all the sweet pepper plants in garden, chomped the first true leaves off the soybeans, and chewed through the cucumber fence. I understand eating the soybeans with their tasty virgin leaves, but I don't understand the purpose of pulling leaves off the pepper plants. Perhaps these plants were victims of a taste test for the baby bunnies.  Chewing through the cucumber fence...well, that is completely uncalled for.  Seriously, there is plenty of room for these creatures to run through the garden. Granted, they are probably preparing for a quick exit once the plants are full grown in a couple of weeks.  

Lower leaves of pepper plants removed

Soybean's first true leaves chomped off

Hole chewed in the cucumber fence

Raspberries

Ripe Raspberries

I picked my first two raspberries of the season today. Delicious! I can't wait until the rest of the raspberries are ripe.

Growing Onions

Red Zeppelin Onions (Scallion Size)

I started these Red Zeppelin onions from seed in January, transplanted the seedlings in the garden in early April, and today I harvest about a dozen scallion size onions. When full grown, the onions will grow to be about 4 inches in diameter and will be properly cured for long-term storage. I am a few months away from that stage, but today's harvest provides much needed room for the remaining onions to grow.

War on Mint

Mint

Mint is an essential ingredient to muddling up a cool mojito on a warm day. But think twice before deciding to plant this prolific herb in your garden. It can and will quickly take over a garden if it is not controlled.

Vampires Beware

Freshly Harvested Garlic

In the fall of 2011, I planted nearly 50 individual hardneck garlic cloves. Since each clove turns into a garlic bulb, I will have quite the harvest this year.

Two weeks ago I began harvesting the garlic scapes and am now waiting for the lower half of the leaves to die back to indicate that the garlic is ready to be harvested.

Based on last years results and the unseasonably warm/dry weather we have had this year, I anticipate a slightly earlier harvest than previous years - probably within the next 3 weeks or so.

Once harvested, the curing process begins. It takes about 4-6 weeks to properly cure garlic for long-term storage.