melons – Harmonious Belly

July 12, 2011July 13, 2011

My Early July Garden

The garden is green and plump and everything is working toward blossoming and fruiting. I’ve got plenty of tomatoes showing up, though most are green. However there are a couple of plants – the Mexican Midget and the Tommy Toe – that have reddening fruit. It’s very exciting to see them progress.

tomato collage — Various stages of the tomatoes in the garden

You can see the Tommy Toe in the upper right hand corner and the Mexican Midget in the bottom left hand corner. The plant with the overabundance of blossoms is the Blondköpfchen – I am so looking forward to seeing the tomatoes that come off this plant. The bottom two images in the collage are the Stupice on the left and the Silver Fir on the right. I’m so pleased to see so many tomatoes growing. I really don’t think I can have too many tomatoes.

My squash plant – which threatens to take over the garden with its crazy vines – is starting to produce!

female squash flower — Female squash flower with fruit

As you can see, there is a small fruit at the bottom. This is a volunteer, so I do not know which exact variety it is, but I suspect it is a tromboncino. We’ll see. They get huge.

The male flower has a thin stem and dies off after its usefulness (pollinating the female) is used up. Kind of brutal, but that’s nature.

It’s hard to see the stem, but the flower is gorgeous. When the plant first started to flower, I thought the blossoms were so gorgeous. Then the next day, I’d go out and find them on the ground, seemingly cut off by some nasty. Turns out it was just the dropping off I mentioned above. Such a relief.

There’s some nice herb action going on at our place, too.

summer herbs collage — Many herbs grace our home

Friends of ours moved away (boo hoo) and offloaded their container herbs on me. They seem pretty happy on the back deck. There’s tarragon, thyme, rosemary, and basil. I’ve also got borage growing in the garden and they are flowering like crazy! I love their blue flowers.

Other stuff in the garden are melons, sour gherkins, peppers and ground cherries, which are coming along nicely. You can see more pictures in my Garden 2011 photoset on Flickr.

This post is participating in the inaugural Astoria Blog Carnival hosted by We Heart Astoria.

June 9, 2011June 9, 2011

Progress of My Garden

garden plot beginning of june — My garden at the beginning of June

I’m happy to say that my garden is planted and on its way to providing me with a harvest. Most of it will likely come at the end of summer, but some things are happening right now. I was especially pleased to spy some tomatoes on my Tommy Toe plant!

first tommy toe tomates — The first of the Tommy Toe tomatoes

As you can see in the picture, there are some creepy crawlies on the tomato plant. I’ve been having to deal with aphids and such this year – they were not an issue last year, so I find this bizarro. I guess it’s just nature, though – unpredictable.

So far, they haven’t wrecked havoc on my plants, and I hope it stays that way. Ladybugs and garlic spray are certainly options. I do check the plants each morning and shake off the bugs, which has seemed to work fine so far.

I’m actually growing a variety of tomatoes: Tommy Toe, Mexican Midget, Blondköpfchen, Silver Fir, and Stupice. The Blondköpfchen, Silver Fir, and Stupice are small but chugging along.

june 2011 tomato collage — June tomatoes

I’m also growing peppers! Tolli, a sweet italian pepper; Jalepeño, which is of course hot; and Bull Nose, a sweet bell type pepper. Thanks to my friend Alex for gifting me these peppers. I was also given a bunch of bean starts from my neighbor Nick. I asked him what kind of beans they are and he said “long”. So, we’ll see how they end up.

peppers and beans june 2011 collage — Peppers and beans

My boarge is doing well. Since I planted it, I’ve learned about all sorts of things to do with this plant. I originally planted it for the beautiful blue flowers – I thought I’d put them in iced tea or lemonade, and also use them as bee attractors. But I’ve learned that you can also use the leaves, too. Apparently they have a taste reminiscent of cucumbers. I would consider using the flowers also in fresh goat cheese and in salads.

Borage is an herbalist’s favorite, so it seems. Lots of information can be found here.

I’m also pleased that some volunteers have made themselves known:

a volunteer — A volunteer - maybe a cucumber?

volunteer ground cherries — Ground cherries from last year

As far as volunteers go in the garden, there’s another cucumbery looking plant, and a tomatillo, of all things (none of my tomatillos fruited last year). I’ve also planted a Mexican Sour Gherkin, Edens Gem melon, and a Charentais melon. They are a bit thin, thanks to the leggyness from the spring, but I expect they’ll grow and get stronger. I’ll post photos of them soon.

Summer gardens are always very exciting! More images of my garden can be found in my Garden 2011 photoset on Flickr.

August 11, 2010August 10, 2010

CSA Bounty – Week Ten

Week 10 Collage

This week was another winner – ultra-summery veggies and fruit. From the top, left to right, row by row, starting at the top:

cucumbers, basil, green and purple peppers (we got one of each), blackberries, summer squash, tomatoes, donut peaches, cantaloupes, okra

We actually got melon in both the vegetable and fruit shares! So I have two lovely melons at home. I think the last time we got melon in a veggie share was the first season as Hellgate CSA (so, in 2006), and we’ve never had melon in the fruit share. It’s very exciting.

Donut peaches are amazing! I love them.

Not sure what to do about the okra – maybe make lact-fermented okra? Will explore some recipes.

As I write this, the tomatoes are gone. I used most of them to make lacto-fermented salsa, and ate the other one in a tomato and basil salad.

Will make cucumber soup this week, most likely. Would be good to use some raw yogurt in it.

Love the summer veggies and fruit!