Monday July 23, 2012

Go to http://daphnesdandelions.blogspot.com/ to see what people around the world have gotten from their vegetable gardens this week.

The shortage of green vegetables continues.  There’s a lot of green tomatoes on the vine, but it’s going to be a few more weeks before any are ripe.  The pepper plants are healthy and full of green peppers, in fact the ancho pepper plant is as large as the Black Krim tomato plant.  They should start producing any time now.  A new summer squash (Cocozelle) is growing fast.  I just hope it doesn’t get whatever did in the last plant. 

The second patch of beans, Roma II, are diseased.  I should rip them out because it doesn’t look like they are going to amount to . . . a hill of beans.  This is the first time I have planted this variety, an F1 from Parks.  Maybe it was the heat.  The next batch of beans, Provider, look fine, but it will be another week or two before those beans are ready.

The cucumbers have been providing a steady supply and the okra is producing more all the  time as the plants become small trees.  Last year the cucumbers succumbed to bacterial wilt after I got two or three cukes.  This year the Diva is growing like it’s on steroids, and will soon start producing heavily.  The Picolino (from Pinetree) is not nearly as vigorous but has been providing small cukes for several weeks.  In fact the Diva was seeded a week after the Picolino was set out as a seedling and the Diva is now many times larger.   The cuke on the right is a Diva, the two smaller ones are Picolino.   

I had to compare the two.  Diva is an excellent cucumber, fresh tasting and crisp.  But the Picolino has it beat.  It’s much better.  Too bad it doesn’t do as well in the heat.   

I dug up a cage of Red Pontiac potatoes.  Adding in the two potatoes that I pulled from the same cage last week, the yield for this cage was 8 lbs, 11 oz.  That’s from five pieces.  If I had maintained adequate water while the plants were growing I think the yield could have been better.  I’ll dig up the cage of blue potatoes later this week.  

This is the last broccoli, a Gypsy.  Not much of a head and half of it was underripe, but after the heat wave I’m not complaining.  It was still good to eat.  I picked one of the cabbages that had been barely growing for months - I think they were planted in April.  It had a baseball sized head.  To say that it was inedible is too kind.  The remaining cabbages were allocated to the compost bin.  More evidence that most cabbage crops have to grow quickly without interruptions or they will not be good.  

This butternut squash was pulled off the vine and chewed by an animal.  Squirrel?  I tend to attribute any animal damage in the garden to squirrels unless I can prove otherwise.  I'm convinced they are vindictive little animals.   

For the week, cucumber 23 oz, okra 6 oz, scallions 4 oz, broccoli 8 oz, pepper 1 oz, red potatoes  7 lb 12 oz, and fish filets 18 oz.