Early August Harvest

This is my first batch of ripe brandy-wine heirloom tomatoes. It's been a cool summer, so I'm happy to get this many. Often I get more, so I will can some tomato sauce. This batch will probably cook down to only 2 to 4 servings of marinara.







Here are my roma tomatoes. We have been eating these and the cherry tomatoes in salads this week. These don't have very good flavor, but it's been a cool summer, so maybe that is why they aren't very sweet.





This crenshaw melon isn't ripe yet.








String beans, ready to pick!











Here is the smallest butternut squash ever grown!

Pea Harvest

We have been eating these snow peas nearly every night this week. The plant continues to produce.

May 22 Garden

These pictures are from May 22. I've been late posting them.

The zucchini plant has been transplanted outside today (shown left). It's growing kindof slowly, but 4 leaves has grown by today (June 6).






Pepper plant also transplanted into the large planter box on May 22 (seen left). The color has improved since then. It's a darker green now. But the size hasn't increased. I've always had difficulty growing peppers for some reason.








The brandywine heirloom tomato plant has grown really fast. This picture was from May 22, but today (June 6), it is taller than the highest horizontal bar shown on the cage in the picture.

Second seed starts

Today, I started some new seeds in flats. They should be ready to transplant outside in a couple of weeks:

1. Dark Green Zucchini (Raven) from Renee's Garden (2010 lot)
2. Soybean (Edamame) from Bountiful Gardens (2007 lot)

Also direct sow into a raised bed, just one:

1. Green and Dry Bean Pole from Bountiful Gardens (2008 lot)
2. Little Dillicious Cucumber from Burpee (2005 lot)
   

Big Raised Bed

Finally, I've filled the new raised bed with a mixture of dirt from the yard, compost from the dump, and also compost from my own compost bin.

Also, I transplanted the melon plants into this big planter today.


Here is a picture of one of the many earth worms I found in my own compost. The compost from the dump does not have these guys.

Good Weather

Finally getting some real gardening weather. Here's a picture of my first ripe strawberry from the Earth Box.






I transplanted 3 of the tomato seedlings outside. The two shown are the Cherry and Roma tomato. I also transplanted a Brandywine tomato into the planter box on the West side of the house.

The red things around my tomatoes are called Automator Tomato & Pepper Trays from Burpee. They are supposed to protect the plant and increase yield. I don't know if they do much though (I used them last year), but I don't think they hurt either.

Bigger Pots

Weather was pretty crummy this weekend. Didn't make much progress on filling my new raised bed. But I did transplant my seedlings into larger containers.

They all had tons of roots. I probably left them in the seed start flats about a week too long.

The pink container contains all the tomato plants. The left two are cherry tomato, the middle two are roma tomato, and the right two are brandywine heirloom tomatoes.

The white container contains all my melon plants: three honeydew, two crenshaw and one cantaloupe.

The blue cup contains watermelon. They rarely do well for me, but I keep trying. The green container in the back is butternut squash.



I was out of potting mix, and was too much in a hurry to go to Yamagami's. The closest place for me is Osh Hardware. They have plants, but they aren't big into organic stuff. The only small bag of potting mix I could find, which said organic, was this one by MiracleGro. I'm sorry, but I kindof doubt anything by MiracleGro is organic.