From the Vine
  • I've moved to craiglehoullier.com

Season is in full swing. Things I am watching for.....

7/11/2011

2 Comments

 
It is always amazing to me when cucumbers, beans, squash, tomatoes, and eggplant seem to grow full sized and ripen overnight!  We are really enjoying the Diva cukes (in fact, Sue canned 6 pints of Bread and Butter pickles on Saturday)....we are eating summer squash with every dinner or lunch - to us, best steamed until tender with a little butter and some chives.  The bag of green beans in our fridge is now reduced to one serving, because I decided to freeze a gallon bag today.  Yet, tomorrow there will be more of everything to pick!  One of my bean rows is looking a bit rough, so tomorrow I plan to pull them out, redig the row and do another planting.

As far as the driveway menagerie of pots, there is always work to be done.  Right now, I am watching closely for advancing disease in the tomatoes.  Each morning I walk the patch and remove damaged foliage - yet even given that, some plants will soon be on life support.  No matter - the objective for me (with so many projects running in the garden) is one ripe fruit for evaluation and seed, and even the worst looking plants have plenty of fruit that should ripen.  I am continuing to remove dead plants and replace them with varieties I've held back.....Dwarf Purple Heart, Shazka, and Yellow Pear are now gone, replaced by some of my reserves.  

I am also doing some rearranging as some of the central driveway indeterminate varieties grow beyond their stakes and start wanting to topple due to the weight of the fruit - so Rose Quartz is now located next to an edge-growing Cherokee Purple, and they now share an 8 foot stake.  I continue to tie and double stake and rotate pots to induce plants to lean against each other!  I am always one gusty thunderstorm away from having a real mess....so far so good, knock on wood!

I noticed some small holes in a few developing sweet peppers - tomorrow may be a day to do some very selective, specific spraying with very dilute Sevin to try to knock down the critters at this critical time.  It is also time to feed the plants again - they are working hard, setting a ridiculous amount of fruit, and I do believe could use a little boost.  

The experimental hot peppers in the small pots are starting to really show themselves - it is becoming clear which are the most attractive and promising - so there will be plenty of decisions and seed saving right around the corner.  Same goes for the Islander sweet pepper stabilization project - it is all so interesting.  Mostly, I am trying to be really careful about ensuring that the plants get plenty of water.  With such tall plants and heavy fruit set, it is impossible to over-water the pots right now!

We've done a series of small tastings the past few days.  I am consistently blown away by the flavors of many of the varieties this year.  And many of the new and in development dwarf varieties are fully the equal of the heavy hitters like Brandywine and Cherokee Purple!  Exciting stuff to be sure, and I will have quite a story to tell them at the Seed Savers Exchange annual campout later this week!

Finally, Alex of the N&O wrote a nice article on our driveway gardening madness in the Sunday paper...which can be found here.



2 Comments

    Links

    • Seedlings Sewn
    • Tomatopalooza 2012 
    • Victory Seeds
    • The Year Round Veggie Gardener 
    • Seed Savers Exchange
    • Straw Bale Gardening
    • Dave's Garden
    • Tomatoville
    • Selected Plants
    • Tomato Growers Supply Company
    • Johnny's Selected Seeds
    • Southern Exposure Seed Exchange
    • Sandhill Preservation

    Archives

    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012
    October 2012
    September 2012
    August 2012
    July 2012
    June 2012
    May 2012
    April 2012
    March 2012
    February 2012
    January 2012
    December 2011
    November 2011
    October 2011
    September 2011
    August 2011
    July 2011
    June 2011
    May 2011
    April 2011
    March 2011
    February 2011
    January 2011
    December 2010
    November 2010
    October 2010
    September 2010
    August 2010
    July 2010
    June 2010
    May 2010
    April 2010
    March 2010
    February 2010
    January 2010
    October 2009
    September 2009

    Categories

    All
    2010 Events
    2011 Garden Update
    2011 Season
    2011 Tomato Harvest
    2014 Season
    Beets
    Black Cherry
    Bleaching
    Caging
    Canning
    Chard
    Cherokee Chocolate
    Comparing
    Container Gardening
    Cooking
    Cooking School
    Craig's Tomato Creations
    Dad
    Daily Stuff
    Daniel Stowe Garden
    Desert Island Tomatoes
    Dwarf Project
    Dwarf Sweet Sue
    Dwarf Tomato Project
    Eggplant
    End Of 2010 Report
    Event
    Favorites For 2009
    Fertilizing
    Flowers
    Garden Issues
    Garden Lessons
    Garden Progress
    Garden Tasks
    Garden Update
    Germinating Seeds
    Germination
    Greens
    Grow Bags
    Growing Medium
    Harvest
    Helping Friends
    Herbs
    History
    Hot Peppers
    Hybrid
    Indeterminate Tomatoes
    Kayaking
    Kitchen Renovation
    Lettuce
    Library
    Lillians Yellow
    Little Lucky
    Lucky Cross
    Monticello
    News
    Newspaper Article
    Office
    On The Radio
    Ornamental Hot Peppers
    Peppers
    Pictures
    Pots
    Recipe
    Recipes
    Robins Nest B&B
    Sara
    Sara's Book
    Seed Family Trees
    Seedlings
    Seed Saving
    Shannons
    Southern Season
    Sse
    Staking
    Suckering
    Sungold
    Sunset Beach
    Sweet Peppers
    Tomato Culture Q&A
    Tomato Culture Videos 2011
    Tomato Dinner
    Tomatoes
    Tomato Histories
    Tomatopalooza 2010
    Tomatopalooza 2010 Videos
    Tomatopalooza 2011
    Tomatopalooza 9 2011
    Tomato Tasting
    Topping
    Transplanting
    Tshirts
    Varieties Grown In 2010
    Video Updates 2010
    Video Updates 2011
    Watering
    Zely And Ritz

    RSS Feed