Just When You Thought It Was Safe to Go Back into the Garden...

It was sunny and 70+ degrees today, so I decided it was probably time to hit the garden and yank out the sunflower, okra, and tomato stalks and throw them on the burn pile. I managed to get out the sunflower and tomato stalks, but couldn't budge the okra stalks (picture at left). I had forgotten how thick they get and how tightly they hold the ground, unlike the sunflower stalks, which are a bit easier to remove. My low back was already hurting a bit from lugging boxes of books around inside to put on the Ikea book shelves, so I didn't have much oomph to put into the okra. I'll have to see if I can talk hubby into digging them out for me.

A few days ago, I decided it was time to harvest the last of the green peppers, no matter how small they still were. I had diligently covered them with kitty litter buckets at night and on days when the temperatures were supposed to get near freezing, and they had been uncovered for several days where lows were in the 40s. But then, when I went to harvest them, they clearly had not survived the cold, wet weather (picture at right). The plants were shriveled and brown, and the peppers were a sickly green, wrinkly, and sporting black rotting spots. Only a week before they were green and healthy looking. [sigh] The moral of the story is, I guess, to plant green peppers much sooner in the season. I knew it was a crapshoot when I planted them, but I was hoping to get at least one pepper! At least I have several bags of diced green, yellow, red, and orange peppers I nabbed at the farmer's market over the summer.

Once I had all the sunflower and tomato stalks on the burn pile, I took one last quick survey of the garden. I need to rake the grass clippings and compost a bit more evenly over the garden (a job for another day, because the garden is still a bit muddy). It's a very different sight from the lush, green garden of summer.

But wait...are those onions?

Yes! They are! I couldn't believe my eyes. The cold and wet had taken out my precious pepper plants, but the white onions I couldn't find because of all the other encroaching plant cover were growing up through four inches of grass clippings, and looking pretty healthy at that! I wasn't sure at first whether they were onions or shallots (I never did find my shallots), so I dug a couple up. They were small white bulb onions. The outer couple of layers were slimy and clear--probably destroyed by the cold--but the rest of the bulb looked healthy. They were too small to do anything much with, so I left them to rot in the garden, to provide nutrients for the soil for next season. What amazed me is that they had about 12 inches of green on them from the top of the bulb to the tip of the green! They really wanted to get to that sunlight!

The Last Harvest of the Season?

It is supposed to get down to 35 degrees tonight, which is very close to frost temperatures. If it frosts, my garden is finished, so even though I didn't feel well, I got outside this evening and harvested what I could.

My tomato plants have just about stopped producing altogether, and the little bit of color you see in the picture at left comprises the remains of tomatoes that worms, grasshoppers, and other vegetarians have left me.

Still, I managed a small harvest today: 2 Best Boy, 1 Genovese Costoluto, 10 plum, 1 yellow, 3 purple, 2 Orange Banana, 1 Beefsteak (albeit with some flesh wounds from some critter), 2 Brandywine, 101 Sun Sugar, and 6 Sungold Select. The tomatoes are scarred, eaten on here and there and, in some cases, really picked a bit too soon. I'll need to place them in the windowsill to ripen, but I thought it best to bring in any that had the potential to ripen so they weren't wasted by frost.

In addition to the tomatoes, I ended up with 2 green onions (I planted these very late as seed, and although I planted an entire row, the cucumbers choked them out and only two survived), 11 okra, and a last handful of green beans.

What saddens me the most about this harvest being potentially the final harvest of the year is the fact that my pepper plants are just starting to produce peppers. I have baby peppers on each plant, some larger than others, and would like to see a few of them grow into a more edible size. Even if we don't get a frost tonight, I fear that a frost is just around the corner. I mean, look at this little guy, trying so hard to grow! But you can see that the plant itself, while green, is showing some signs of disease, probably brought on by the overabundance of chilly rains lately.

Also, I'm sad that I won't get any sunflower seeds. The heads are heavy with seeds, but the seeds won't have a chance to finish and their shells harden before a frost comes along. I was really looking forward to roasting those seeds for winter consumption.

Yesterday's Harvest; Today's Market Purchases

While I was out taking pictures of my creepy bug infestations yesterday, I also grabbed a few tomatoes that caught my eye: A couple of brandywines, a Best Boy, and a plum tomato.

I was very pleased to note that my pepper plants are getting blossoms on them now. I am worried, however, that I won't get peppers from them quickly enough to beat the frost. We'll have to see. I don't know if I have the energy to build a cold frame for them--I'll have to do some looking online and see what it takes. I just planted too late, I think, but time will tell.

I stopped by the Bloomington Farmer's Market today and picked up some Italian flat-leaf parsley, some Ropp cheese (cojack; garlic-bacon cheddar, and tomato-garlic-basil cheddar), some beets, 4 anjou pears, some salad lettuce, some heirloom tomatoes ($1 a pound for defectives, many of which had hardly any defects) for salsa making, some green, yellow, and red sweet peppers, and a bag of peaches. The peaches are huge, and I hope they are sweet! The crap they call "peaches" in the store are never ripe when you buy them, and if you try to ripen them on the counter, they go bad overnight. Blech. All of what I purchased was fresh, herbicide- and pesticide-free, and from local farms. I also purchased another 1.5 pounds of bacon made from pastured piggies. Yum!

I'm hoping, too, that the sunflowers, which are now all open, will develop their seeds before the frost. I'd really like to be able to roast sunflower seeds this year.

I need to order a cover crop for the garden. I'm thinking hairy vetch instead of winter wheat, to help break up the soil. Any suggestions?

Waxing Poetic about Sunflowers

There's something really appealing about sunflowers. They seem stately, somehow, elegant. Of all the plants in the garden, the sunflower towers over all as it stretches its stems upward to worship the sun. When it is in full bloom, the head drooping heavily, laden with the burden of seeds, it seems a reflection of the sun looking down upon us, its seed center a full eclipse upon the sun's flaming beauty.

My sunflowers are indeed stately, standing soldier-tall, heads facing directly up to receive full benefit of the sunlight. The spiky head leaves are a direct contrast to the softer, more graceful arms. The stalks are thick, strong, and stable, supporting not only the weight of the flowers-to-be, but also the weight of the cucumber vines that have used them as trellises over the last few weeks. The last cucumbers I picked were hanging from the sunflower stalks and were blemish-free; they had rested protected beneath the sunflower's shady leaves.

I'm hoping our first frost is far enough away that these sunflowers have a chance to bloom and develop seeds; I want to enjoy the flaming beauties before fall takes a foothold. I want to be able to save and roast the seeds, to enjoy a taste of sunshine until spring, when I can plant these beauties again.

The Rabbits Found My Garden

Sooner or later, it was bound to happen.

The bunnies I have so delighted in watching finally realized that the fence did not yet extend all the way around the garden and helped themselves to mouthfuls of tender soup bean plants. I think we caught them in time, however; with a few leaves and the occasional blossom remaining, I think these bean plants will eventually rally. Only time will tell. I do wonder, however, why as a child I delighted in tales of Peter Rabbit outwitting Farmer McGregor. Today I have much compassion for the poor storybook farmer.

Hubby and I finished putting the rest of the garden fence up tonight in the hopes that we will be able to keep the bunnies from feasting on more beans or any of the other plants. (Especially since I need to plant my pepper seedlings.) I took a long shot of the garden while David was fixing the fence, and I have to say that even with a section not yet planted, the garden is looking amazing! And of course, the zucchini is producing like crazy. So are the tomatoes, and it won't be long before they begin to turn and I have some luscious, red, juicy tomatoes to eat! They're best straight out of the garden on a warm, sunny day, but frankly, I'll eat tomatoes just about any way I can get them!

The sunflowers and okra continue to grow. Not much to report there. The cucumbers continue to blossom and are still trying to overrun the dill and cilantro. Well, not really trying, actually, but rather succeeding. I do need to train the cucumbers up, and to that end, I purchased three large trellises at JoAnn Fabrics a few days ago. They are regularly $24.99 each, far more than I would ever consider paying; however, I happened to be endcapping in the store (searching the clearance endcaps for bargains) when I discovered that the wrought-iron trellises were 70% off, making each one just $7.49 each! Now that is my kind of deal! I'm going to try setting them up at the end of the fencing and train the cucumbers up the trellises. If it works, it should be much easier to harvest the cucumbers.

Today's zucchini harvest totaled 8, with 5 sun sugar tomatoes. The tomatoes are slow, but I suspect they will all ripen around the same time. It has cooled off again, so their growth will slow a bit. But as soon as the weather heats up and humidifies, they'll take off again. Without looking back at previous posts, I think I've harvested close to 40 zucchini already. I'm not sure what the poundage would be--maybe next year I'll invest in a scale and weigh my produce.

And finally, the bug report. David and I went out and attacked the bugs again. I added another inch of handpicked bugs to my disgusting beetle bucket, and David sprayed down the bushes and trees again. Just so you get a sense of how thick the Japanese Beetles are, here's a shot of just one leaf-worth--13 bugs. See how they have eaten the life right out of the leaf? And this is just one leaf of hundreds sporting this many bugs. How many bugs does it take to make a plague, anyway?

Head for Cover: The Zukes Have Arrived!

I am happy to report that thanks to yesterday's steady rain, which jump-started the crops again after a few coolish, dry days, about a half dozen zucchini are within just a day or two of picking. This friendly zuke is just shy of pickable size--tomorrow, I suspect, he will become part of the summer harvest.

My okra and sunflowers are just breaking through the soil and "spider mulch" (more on that in the next post). I can almost taste the fried okra (mine beats Cracker Barrell's, hands down!) and the salted, roasted sunflower seeds (assuming the birds will let me have any to roast). Of course, I'm getting a bit ahead of myself, because they are only tiny seedlings right now. Sigh.

I repotted my pepper and Beefsteak tomato seedlings in bigger plants and placed them back under the grow light and on the warming tray, respectively. That was the right move; the seedlings are already sprouting additional leaves in just two days, whereas in their little pots, they had stayed at only two leaves for a week or more. I can't wait for them to get big enough to transfer to the garden, and the last area of the garden will finally be filled.

Still no sign of the cilantro/coriander or the green onions. I only have a couple of "Mammoth Dill" plants also, and they are by no means mammoth. In fact, they could be called "Wee Dill," or perhaps even "Puny Dill" right now. But no worries--they will grow.

I now have baby green beans, people! You can't tell from the photo, but these green beans are only about an inch long. They are very cute! [Ignore the onion that is trying to hog the picture--I tried to beat him back, but he was very determined to be in the photo. I finally gave in.]

And finally, a shout out to my Dad, who is racing me in the tomato department. He has one of those Topsy Turvy tomato plants--you know, the ones that grow upside down--and we're counting to see who gets the most tomatoes. Well, Dad, my Beefsteak tomato plant is about to enter the race--and I know I have some catching up to do. Here's a picture so you can see what you are up against. I have six teeny tomatoes on their way in just one segment of the plant. I didn't check out the rest of the plant yet. What's your count so far?

Zucchini Are Rampant

It begins. You see to the left a picture of the first of many zucchini that have already been born and, within a day or two, will be ripe for eating. I counted a half dozen that I could recognize as zucchini, with many more blossoms heralding future zukes. Prepare your doorsteps, folks; "Leave a Zucchini on Your Neighbor's Doorstep Day" is coming sooner than usual this year! (Note: The official "Leave a Zucchini on Your Neighbor's Doorstep Day is--I think--August 8 each year.)

In addition to the zucchini, my Ireland Creek Annie beans are the first to sport blossoms, so it won't be long now before the soup beans will be coming on. As my loyal readers may recall, I planted several different kinds of soup beans in addition to green beans. I've never harvested soup beans before (Mexican bean beetles and neglect took last year's attempt), so it will be interesting to see how much of a pain it is. And yes, I see the bug in the picture, but I am happy to report it is merely a cricket, the soul of a deceased Chinese emperor come to visit my humble garden.

Tomorrow I will need to transfer my tomato and pepper seedlings into bigger pots. They are a bit too small for the garden yet, but need more room for rooting. Here's a look at the seedlings. The tomatoes are looking a bit spindly on the left. The pepper plants are looking quite healthy in the back, and the oregano seedlings are coming on strong!

Yesterday I planted green onions, okra, and cilantro/coriander, and mammoth sunflower seeds directly into the garden and lightly mulched with grass clippings. It's probably too late in the season to be planting these foods, but what the heck, every one of my gardens is an experiment of some sort. The whole planting season has been late due to the three-month-long April showers. If they don't take, I can always adjust next year.