New crop of Roma Tomatoes ready to be oven dried.
I picked another large bunch of Roma Tomatoes today which I will oven roast and dehydrate. I will try freezing them which I am told works very well.
The Roma plants are small and bear very well. I think that they can be planted closer together next year. Probably three across the bed like the peppers and closer together, maybe two feet or less.
New Garden Bed – One month after planting.
The plantings that I put in at the end of July are about ready to go. My spring planted Zucchini is on it’s last leg, but not to worry, the new plants are blooming and have some tiny fruit on them. We’ll see how quickly they mature.
The Patty Pan squash should have edible fruit later this week. The beans are flowering and the Kale and chard could be a little further along. The butternut squash was probably planted way too late, and the location behind the barn was probably too dry and maybe not enough sun.
Everything probably could have gone in a week or so earlier, other than the butternut squash, which probably have been planted around the 4th of July. We’ll know definitely when the season is over.
My Basil is starting to yellow and look pretty sad, so I decided to do a little reading up on the culture of the crop. According to the articles, once the plant flowers, the Basil turns bitter and that’s the end of it. This makes sense as I never get to the buds quick enough, and the plant is flowering before I can pick them off.
I made Pesto last year and it was bitter, which I thought was due to the fact I used walnuts instead of pine nuts, which didn’t seem right. Now I know it was the Basil. I bought some potted Basil at Heinen’s, our new food store in town. I got three 8-inch pots for $1.99 each. Great price!
I made pesto with half new and half from my old plants and it turned out great.
The articles also recommended to add Basil to your cooking at the end. It holds it’s flavor better.
Next year, I’ll put a couple of plants in and then try succession plantings from seed.
I picked beans today. Probably should have done it two days ago. They are a little large, but fine. There were easily enough for 5 or 6 meals. There is a 7 ft. row of Roma Beans and a 7 ft. row of the other. So, I picked them 55 days after planting.
Next year, I should probably plant 8 ft. rows and stagger the planting every two weeks.
Heirloom tomato salad with roasted Roma tomatoes and cucumbers.
I got enough Heirloom Tomatoes to make a salad. A couple of Black Krims and one Cherokee Purple that should probably been left on the vine a couple more days, and a couple Lemon Boys.
I cut up the tomatoes and a cucumber and a bunch of basil. Dressed it with Olive Oil and Balsamic and some black pepper. Then I topped it with roasted Roma tomatoes. Delicious!
Don’t mess with this guy!
The drought continues, so in order to keep the garden flourishing, I need to water every other day or so. The garden is spread out in a haphazard manner with mostly raised beds. It’s tough to get good coverage with a sprinkler, so I water by hand which takes an hour or two.
I was watering under what is left of the pear tree. I’ve trimmed the tree as much as possible and will probably have it taken down in the fall, as it is shading parts of the garden, and I never get an pears anyway due to various animals and hornets and yellow jackets that attack the pears while still on the tree and then harass me when I walk through the garden.
Anyway, I was watering under the tree this evening and things started hitting me on the back. Finally, I got hit on the head with a pear. I looked up in the tree and evil squirrel was sitting there throwing pears at me. This has happened before.
Now, I bear no animosity toward the rodent, even though he (or she) has torn shingles off of my roof during nesting season, and made a hole in the shed, but then wisely decided that it was not a good place for a nest after shredding most of a roll of paper towels and stuffing them in the space above the door.
“Evil’ may be too strong a term to use for this furry creature. One would not call Disney’s Chip and Dale “Evil” no matter how much they tormented Donald Duck, so maybe a term like impish, mischievous, or other adjective that is less “dark” and slightly comic might be more apt.
After the pear on the head, I was tempted to set my watering nozzle to “Jet”, point the nozzle into the tree and give the little so-and-so a good soaking, but I remembered that squirrels can be very vindictive and usually have the last word.
Several painful encounters with wasps put enmity between them and their seed and myself at an early age. For most of my years since then, it was open warfare and I usually walked outside with a can of Yard Guard in each holster, ready to dispatch any member of the Vespa Genus that even thought about attaching a nest to any part of my domicile.
My attitude has softened a bit as I became more of a gardener, and I’ve developed, shall we say, a working relationship with these little creatures. Now, don’t get me wrong, I still have a lot of respect for them, as they are armed, and they still sit down hard when threatened. But they are more helpful than harmful, and if you don’t threaten their nest, they are usually quite docile.
The reason I’ve become more tolerant and respectful is because they do an excellent job of ridding the garden of pests. That means I don’t need to use any pesticides. It is interesting to watch them at work; they will inspect the underside of each leaf and if they find a bug, it gets a paralyzing sting, and then is carried back to the nest to be food for the next generation of gardeners.
It all revolves around wine.
As if that weren’t enough, I read an article from NPR this week that said that wasps and hornets are responsible for that complexity of flavors that is part of the enjoyment of a good wine. It seems that these critters bite the grapes while on the vine, probably to get a bit of juice. In their gut, they carry a microbe that is essentially brewer’s yeast, which they inject into the grape, which starts the fermentation process on the vine. That and other microbes that the wasps and hornets spread is responsible for the different fermentations and flavors that make for a good wine.
Nature is way more intertwined than we ever expected.
I planted two more hills of Zucchini for a fall crop, as this one will probably succumb to borers by the end of August if not sooner. I also planted a couple of hills of Butternut squash, but I am probably way too late. In any case, it will help me set the planting date for winter squash for next year.
Almost all of the fall stuff I planted earlier this week is popping out of the ground already.
I also pulled up the onions that Mary gave me as they were doing nothing. I planted that whole cell of the herb garden with seed for bunching onions. I won’t thin them, and I’ll see if they will produce perpetually.
I fertilized the whole garden today with Miracle Grow.
Black Krim, almost ready to pick.
I picked the first four Black Krim heirloom tomatoes today. They are a bit larger than a golf ball, and very tasty. We’ll see if the later ripening ones are any bigger. I made open faced sandwiches with basil, onion, Black Krimm tomatoes and banana peppers on toasted multi-grain bread, topped with mozzarella,a bit of parmesan and a generous grind of fresh black pepper. I stuck it under the broiler until brown and bubbly. Very tasty. Can’t wait for the other varieties of heirlooms to ripen.
We picked enough blackberries for dessert for FWG last night. I made shortcake from Bisquick. Jackie was in from Africa, so it was a fun evening. This is almost the end of the Blackberries, the heat and drought limited what should have been a bumper crop.
Char picked a couple of cukes from her side of the fence — these are the first ones. They are coming in fairly slow, but I planted quite late.
We finally got some more rain last night, I measured about 0.6 inches. Every little bit helps, but the temperature is supposed to be back to 100 tomorrow.
I did the fall planting in the new bed today, hopefully I’m not too late. Here’s what went in:
I also planted a wide row of Bloomingsdale Long-Standing spinach next to the existing row of Swiss Chard.
I also cleaned up behind the barn for a planting of butternut squash.