Friday, September 04, 2009

garden update

- Late Blight hit my home tomatoes yesterday. The New Girl and Orange Blossom plant are heavily infected. Others OK so far. I'm picking the fruits now as soon as they show any red to ripen inside.
- Funny how some of my eggplants and peppers are rotting. The plants look OK. I'm wondering if its late blight. I'm thinking it probably is, but I read that this is unusual. Hmmm.
- I picked all my popcorn - about 50 ears! (I'll get a good count soon.) Its waiting to be shucked and hung to dry. I looking forward to having it hanging in the kitchen.
- I have a couple big bowls of vegetables waiting for me on the kitchen counter. A true sign of late summer. It will make a nice batch of red sauce. This year's will be heavier on the carrots, onions, and squashes and lighter on the tomatoes, but delicious no doubt.
- I've picked 4 or 5 big butternuts so far. I have to remember to bring big strong bags with me when I go to the garden these days.
- My Chiogga beets were pale, almost white inside last time I cooked them. And not as sweet as last year. Disappointing. I guess I let them get too big. I didn't realize this would happen. Or maybe something to do with the wet weather?
- My pumpkins are getting big. Two Big Rock and several Jarrahdale's. I heard on TV that many commercial growers have very small pumpkins this year due to cool early summer weather. I'll count myself lucky.

6 comments:

Dan said...

Blight hit my plants last week and pretty badly too. Such a bad year for tomatoes, I think I only harvested a 1/4 of them. I have a few that I am holding out for, hillbilly which looks good still and has yet to ripen a single fruit and pink berkley tie dye. I hope your blight does not progress any more. 50 ears of the popcorn is pretty impressive!

Kelly said...

Sorry to hear the blight found your home garden as well. I had one eggplant rot too, but it was the first fruit of the season. At first I couldn't figure out what was going on with it.

pion said...

My tomatoes are prolific. tomorrow I'm canning 30 lbs of roma so many more to come. Have all my potatoes in the cellar. Blight stopped in Hanover, NH. Have canned cornichon pickles, asparagus, beets, and have onions & garlic & leeks & shallots agogo, leeks are frozen. Also flageolet beans and soy beans coming on strong. Cabbage & brussels sps will take 4 or more wks. Vineyard ready early Oct. Orchard loaded w. apples, etc. And yes, peas, capucijners are all dried and ready for soup. Hooray!!!

kathy said...

Wow pion! That sounds great. You've been really busy.

Kelly said...

my Chiogga beets were very pale this year, too. The rings were barely visible and they didn't taste nearly as sweet as past years. I was assuming something to do with soil, but perhaps the wet, cool weather, too? I don't know. It's been a dreadful garden season. I lost all tomatoes... even bringing them in to ripen, then rotted overnight in the bowl. I may give up my heirlooms for a few years while I try to rid the garden beds of blight.

kathy said...

I haven't eaten many of my beets this year, but have collected several bags of them for storage. I'm curious to do a test test and see what's up. I grew Chiogga, dark red Lutz and White Detroit. They'll look nice all together. Hopefully the pale and tasteless Chiogga's were a fluke.