Tuesday, September 01, 2009

garden update

Good
- I picked 4 ears of BEAUTIFUL popcorn. I am so happy with these!!!
- I have harvested 2 little pumpkins and 3 big butternut squash so far.
- My two giant pumpkins both look bigger than the 11 pounder I grew last year. They are just starting to show a little orange.
- My flowers are brightening up the garden very nicely now: big purple zinnias, an ornamental bean (I have forgotten the name) and bright marigolds.
- Lots of eggplant!
- Time to make pesto ASAP.
- And time to make tomato sauce. Vines are very heavy with fruits!

Not so good news
- Several savoy cabbages have rotten before ripening. Maybe a stem problem. I had too many anyway, but wish I knew what it was.
- Powdery mildew is quickly killing the squashes and pumpkin vines.
- A few worms in the tips of some of the popcorn ears, but I just cut the tips off.
- The squirrel have found my Sungold cherry tomatoes. He's small - plenty to share.
- My tomato vines are starting to break where they have looped over the top rail and started to grow hanging town.

8 comments:

Kelly said...

Thats too bad about the tomato vines, do you think they will repair and thicken?

Unknown said...

There is always some loss in the garden but it sounds ike you had a good harvest =)

Unknown said...

i lost my cucumbers and probably my zucchini (haven't given up quite yet) to powdery mildew. it's been pretty rainy in michigan lately.

Lexa said...

Amazingly, no powdery mildew in Oregon yet. Our nights have remained above 50 so far. The great thing about gardening is while there are always things that didn't go your way, there are also always things that went as well or better than you had hoped.And in gardening, there is always next year!

Marian(LondonUK) said...

Hi there. Pumpkins on the lottie useless, I tried the 3 sisters method, beans and corn great, squash not. Sad as I love squash. We also have the powdery mildew on Courgettes so after wondering what to do with them all, they are not setting fruit properly and coming to a quick end. At last the large tomatoes are ripening, so scoffing them and making sauce to freeze for pasta later in the year. General discussion among the old fork leaners on the Allotment site at the weekend was that some things, e.g. beans are finishing early by as much as a month. Summer weather strange again this year.
Marian (LondonUK)

pjkobulnicky said...

Winter squash and pumpkins were interesting for me. The ones I planted from seed are doing so-so. The ones that volunteered from my compost did fantastically. But now I am wondering if they will keep well since they ripened much too early. I was hoping for a late Sept. ripening rather than an an early August.

kathy said...

I'm wondering about my August squash and pumpkins too.

Last year my August pumpkin rotted fast - in a couple couple weeks. But later ones kept well. I figure I'll turn my 2 pumpkins already harvested into pumpkin bread soon. Or freeze grated pumpkin.

Karen Anne said...

My tomatoes when they have broken stems really do not seem to mind much, and go on producing anyway.