Harvest: August 1

Today's harvest: 2 tomatoes, 3 tomatillos, and some green beans!

Harvest, August 1

I put the tomatoes, green beans, and some green onions from the garden into a veggie frittata for dinner tonight. Yum!

Sauteeing Veggies for a Fritatta

Hoping for a fall crop, I also planted two varieties of peas today: Sugar Sprint and Snowbird. Stay tuned.

First Tomato of the Season!

I picked the very first tomato of the season on my birthday, July 27!

First Tomato of 2011, July 27

I used it in a pasta salad that we served at a cookout this weekend. Success!

Peas, done for the season

My first crop of the season - garden peas - were also the first to finish.

The last peas of the season! July 24

The fresh peas were so delicious, and I'm so glad that I grew them this year. I may still try a fall crop, although I hear that fall crops of peas can be hit-or-miss.

Tabasco peppers

Never have I seen a more productive plant than this little Tabasco pepper plant. Those fruits may be small, but there are SO MANY!

Tabasco Peppers, July 24

I think I'll try my hand at making hot sauce once these are harvested. James LOVES hot sauce and puts it on nearly everything he eats!

Collard Greens

I am lucky to have really great neighbors, and while working in my garden I've made a wonderful bunch of "gardening friends" who enjoy sharing tips and tricks. One of my neighbors is also an excellent and generous cook. She prepares authentic "soul food" and Southern recipes, and she promised me that if I grew collard greens, she would teach me how to cook them.

Not wanting to miss out on this offer, I planted a few little collard plants in my bed. After learning the hard way about cabbage worms, the collards really took off and became big and bountiful. And my neighbor came through on her promise and taught me her signature recipe for collard greens (which is so good, her 7-year old grandson has told me it's his "favorite food"!) She even gave me some of her secret ingredient: smoked turkey tails.

Here's yesterday's harvest, making their way into my first "mess o greens"!

Collard greens harvest, July 24

I followed my neighbor's recipe exactly - slow cooking the greens for 3.5 hours - and it came out really well!

Tomatoes turning color!

My tomatoes are LOVING the hot weather and sunshine they've been getting lately, although it's been a challenge to keep them watered when every day has been topping 90 degrees. My first few tomatoes are just starting to blush red:

Park's Whopper starting to turn color, July 24

Here's the whole raised bed garden:

Raised bed garden, July 24

Green Beans

Loving how prolific my green beans have been.

Green Beans, July 19

I planted 9 bush bean plants per square foot (3x3) - and I was skeptical that they would have enough room - but the plants all seem happy as clams. They do kind of flop over onto the garden path and unoccupied garden areas, but they're growing real well and producing a lot of beans.

Green Bean Harvest, July 22

Tomatillo Harvest

Harvested my first tomatillos yesterday, July 22! Can't wait to make some delicious salsa verde with these:

Tomatillos, July 22

and maybe some of these:

Garden Salsa Hot Peppers, July 19

Spring Vegetables

One of my goals for this year's garden was to make sure I plant things in time for a Spring garden. Last year, the raised bed was newly built in the beginning of June, which was only early enough to plant summer vegetables: heat-loving tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, and tomatillos. I also got in some radishes, beets, carrots, and green onions. And I was really happy with the results: I had enough tomatoes to eat, supply my co-workers, and can over 40 jars of salsa and marinara sauce. I am STILL sick of cucumbers. But, I didn't harvest much of anything until August, when the hot-weather crops really started producing.

This year, I was anxious to get gardening as soon as possible! Early on, I had tomato transplants waiting in the wings; I read gardening books; I laid out garden plans while it was still snowy and cold outside. And now, while my summer garden is just starting to really take off with nice daily growth, blossoms and baby fruits, my spring garden is in peak production/harvest mode. Neat!!

Here are a few pictures of my spring harvests:

Radishes

Garden Peas

Green Onions

Baby tomatoes

There are baby fruits on my tomato plants!

Tomato baby, June 19

Radishes

I love radishes - they are so quick and easy to grow, and so good as snacks or in salads! I've harvested about 2 succession crops of radishes from my garden so far.

Radishes Growing, June 11

Here's yesterday's harvest:

Radish Harvest, June 19

Park's Whopper

Park's Whopper is currently my biggest tomato plant. It is also a container plant. The pot is 6.5 gallons, the largest size I have - but I am still a little concerned that it will not be big enough. The plant has, at least, doubled in size in the past 10 days.

Park's Whopper, June 5

Park's Whopper, June 16

Flowers on Park's Whopper, June 16

Tomatillos

This year I've planted 2 tomatillo plants together in a big (6.25 gallon) pot with a trellis. They seem to be doing pretty well so far! They have flowers already and they're getting pretty bushy. The trellis seems to be working a bit better than the stakes I used last year. The young tomatillo plants have REALLY fragile main steps, and last year the wind whipped one of my plants away from its stake, breaking its stem where I had tied it. This year, the branches and leaves are holding the plants to the trellis without much tying. Now that the main stems are thicker, I think they'll stay put.

Tomatillo Plants, June 12

Tomatillo Flower, June 12

Tomatillo Plants, June 16

Last year I had no tomatillo flowers until the beginning of July... so I am excited for a possible early harvest this season!

Garden update

Photos of my mid-June garden:

Tomatoes, radishes, greens - June 5

Glads and marigolds up front, veggies in raised bed, James working on the landscaping project in the background - June 12

Peas, green beans, radishes, peppers - June 12

Garden Peas Update: Loaded with peapods!

Can't wait to harvest the first garden peas of the season!

Pea plant loaded up with peapods, June 16

Cabbage Worm

I have 3 collard plants in my garden. 2 of them have been decimated by the cabbage worm. The cabbage worm is a tiny little caterpillar with an AMAZING appetite. Case study:

Collard Plant 1: Healthy

Collard Plant 2: Eaten by Cabbage Worm

Devastating! I even spied a worm in action on my plant. He is camoflaged, but if you look closely you can see him in this picture:

Cabbage Worm on Collard Plant

Apparently, an organic remedy is available to take care of this problem. It's a bacteria called "bacillus thuringiensis", or BT. Benign to humans, pollinators, and beneficial insects ... but deadly to these little worms. A bottle of this product is on its way to me currently, to take care of this problem ...

Valley Girl Tomato

I have a potted Valley Girl tomato that I am growing in a 5-gallon pot on my front steps. Just wanted to show how it's been doing over the past few weeks (this post is mostly for my mum, who raised Valley Girl seedlings out in MA and gave me one of the plants when she came to visit in May).

May 21 (Valley Girl on far right)

May 28

June 5

June 13 (Valley Girl up front, Orange Blossom to its right)

Garden Peas

So far, I have harvested radishes, green onions, and lettuce - but I am also trying a new vegetable for the first time this year: garden peas. And they are a Spring crop: almost ready to start harvesting!


Just wanted to show a few pictures of my pea plants from the season so far:

May 21

June 11 (they have flowers!)

At this point, they've sprouted little baby pea pods ... more on that later.

Additionally, you may have noticed a dramatic difference in the background of the pictures (weeds on May 21, gravel path on June 11) . We've just finished a big landscaping project which will be the subject of an upcoming post!

Garden Layout

Here's this year's layout:
Here's how the raised bed looks now:

I'm back!

Spring comes pretty late in Upstate NY. This season we had 127 inches of snow. It snowed a few times this week even, and it's nearly May. But winter or not, late April means it's time to start planning my summer garden!

I found a useful chart for when to plant what in my zone:



(Source: http://www.veggieharvest.com , and you can get the calendars for other zones at http://www.veggieharvest.com/Table/Vegetable-Planting-Calendar/)

So far I've planted peas, beets, radishes and lettuce outside - although the bunnies already ate the tiny lettuce seedlings ... sigh. I also started a few herbs, tomatoes and peppers inside to transplant after the frost-free date. In Zone 5, that's around Memorial Day, although I might try to jump the gun this year with a few of my plants. Last summer, the neighbors were harvesting tomatoes probably a MONTH earlier than I was ... maybe I was a little jealous ;-)