Flowers and Fruits

Hot again today and I am afraid that the pole beans are just going stall in this place with thousands of flowers but no beans. What a bummer. Last year I had so many.
I have been enjoying the tomatoes which are doing much better than last year. I have another load full and if the weather doesn't get a little cooler, I am going to have to freeze tomato puree again.

On another note, the okra are enjoying the heat and have begun to produce enough that I could make a whole dish. I know that okra are not most people's favorite vegetable but they are nostalgic since my mother used to make them. I was happy to see that even thought the package said that the plant grows 6-7 feet tall, mine have stalled at 4 feet. My garden feels like a jungle already. the flowers are gorgeous. These are the pickings for one day so I will have enough for a meal in three days.

My daughter left for Sleep away camp for the first time. She is there for two weeks. I had to harvest her edamame beans but I blanched them and put them in the freezer. They are very good but this was the yield of 6 plants. Does anyone know if they re-flower and will they keep producing? If not I will pull them out and plant a new fall crop which I will have to do very soon.

The other two eggplants that I planted are beginning to produce flowers and fruits and I find them to be so beautiful. I do not remember the variety of these two plants but I will take what I get.

Garden Gone Wild and Harvest Monday

Well, I replaced one of the stolen cameras with a small camera that will take semi decent pictures. That should make this week and future weeks' posts "prettier" if nothing else. Daphne has a lot more harvest to look at.

Granny dared me and I took the challenge.
Three of the 5 corn that I can harvest. As you can see, much less impressive than Granny's corn harvest. I recently learned that every bud on the corn flower is the pollinator life line to the kernels in the corn. There were a lot of pollinator bees on those flowers so I am not sure why the corn looks so…. I do not think I will try corn again unless I can pick a different spot for them.

On some of the other fronts, Tomatoes have been rolling in by the bowl fulls. I weighed my Sunday harvest and it came out close to 10lbs for that day alone. It looks like I will have another week of this kind of harvest every two days and then I think there may be a hiatus. The plants have some small tomatoes on them but I am hoping there will be more flowers and fruit set with slightly cooler weather.

Harvested some pepper.

Beans are doing poorly but the plant has gone wild. i am not sure if I would find a bean if it was in there. Robin is having the same problem and we think it was the excessive heat. Oh well. I am beginning to get okra on a regular basis and that is fun. The flowers are so beautiful.

The zucchini squash plant that was giving me a a squash every other day has stopped producing and the SVB does not seem to have stunted the plant growth. Maybe I should pull it out.

I am looking forward to being able to post some other stuff with the new insta-camera.

Tomato, Tomato

The tomatoes have taken over my life. I did not expect to have so many before July 31. This is usually where we are at in mid August so I wonder how long into the August and September we will have tomatoes. A couple of years back, I had tomatoes on the plants till the first week of October.

I have been working minimally in the garden during these hot days. They are so exhausting for me. I try to get an hour of work in before the sun hits the garden which is at 8:00 am So I am out there early.

Last week I pulled out all the peas and gave room to the okra that was planted between the pea rows. They are happy and it is amazing how much they grew in the last week. I harvested about 10-12 okra. The first 5 went into a squash, tomato, swiss chard stew and my daughter did not notice. Next time we will put 10 in and see if she can taste them.

This week I pulled all the carrots and beets and planted a fall crop of carrots, beets and radishes. Hoping the heat does not kill them before they get started.

The pole bean has not started producing and I am not sure why. There are loads of flowers on the plant but no beans.

Peppers are beginning to come in.

Cucumbers are being picked one or two a day and then ………………
There are the tomatoes:

Harvest Monday

(Note! Had a problem with this post and had to recreate it. Lost all the comments. - Sorry.)
Still did not replace the stolen camera. The size of the type, loosely reflects the amount harvested in that category. In the mean time, the phone pictures will have to do for some of the nice surprises.

. . .

TOMATOES

Swiss chard

Beets

Butternut squash

Beans

Yellow Crook Neck Squash

Zucchini

Carrots

Cucumbers

Peppers

Eggplant

And look at this butternut squash. I never weigh my harvest but I had to for this one.

Almost 4 lbs!!

Hop over to Daphne's to see other harvest for the week.

Ugly Picture - Beautiful Tomato

OK
So I know the pictures are cruddy. They come off the phone and I must say I never used that feature before. I just had to show off my first large tomato. This is a brandywine and it is a good 20 days before I have ever harvested in previous years. Ate it tonight and it was as good as they always are. All the plants are loaded with them but may have ceased setting fruit since it was so hot for a couple of days. We will see what happens in the next couple of days. We finally got rain after 4 weeks of no substantial rainfall.

Here are some of the other tomatoes also. And these are the carrots that I pulled. Not as sweet as I had hoped. Any thoughts on the reason?





A lot more in the garden that is being harvested but the phone camera is just not cutting it.

*!#**@?%$!

Had a wonderful day today with a friend at a nearby lake. Just relaxing and talking, catching up on life.
Upon our return I was ready to prepare a dinner of pasta with fresh vegetables from the garden when… I noticed the kitchen window screen was ripped apart. With a quick glance around, I realized my camera was gone. STOLEN!! Boy am I pissed. There will be many picture-less posts until I can replace it.
Sure did put a damper on a really nice day.

TOO HOT!

Everything is moving at a snail's pace and that includes me. Watered at 5:30 this morning and then harvested some beans, chard, beets, squash and chili peppers. I didn't have the energy to come upstairs, get the camera, and photograph before I cooked them. Too hot to work the stove after 8:00 in the morning.

We all slept in the living room where the one air conditioner is. The temperature in our bedroom was 97° at 10:00 pm.

I think I'll find a movie to take my daughter to.

Harvest Monday

Head over to Daphne's to see what others are harvesting for Harvest Monday.
I had a bountiful week and we are having a constant variety of vegetables. The tomatoes are coming in and this heat should sweeten them up a bit. This is only a sampling. No weights on any of these but I am pleased.

Is that a Carrot

I was out picking the peas this morning when I had the strong overwhelming desire to pick one of the carrots that I have been waiting for patiently. I know that everyone else on the east coast has planted and already pulled their spring carrots but I am on the slow side. Not having planted carrots in previous years and failing with the first attempts, I came across Dan's blog entry about how he was planting them. He in turn got the idea from Granny's directions. So, some where in the first week of May, I decided to give it a go. I think for my zone, I should have done this in early April and I would have had them pulled by now.
I just had to take a peak, and was I surprised to actually see a pretty straight, good looking beginning of what is going to be a carrot.

It tasted good too.