Thursday, August 6, 2009

August Update

It's been a pretty quiet week in the garden. I have harvested just a few zucchini, a half pound of beans and just under 2 pounds of small potatoes. A few of the pots of potatoes were looking dead and I was pretty sure it's too early for most of them to be ready. When I poked down around the "done" plants, I discovered that they were dry! With all the rain we had in July I was worried that they were too wet. Most of the straw was wet but the compost at the bottom was dry. I watered the pots and I plan to take the moisture meter out to check everything tomorrow as it has been several days since we've had any significant rainfall.
Early week harvest - zucchini, beans & potatoes.

I hand-pollinated the little pattypan when the bloom opened the other morning. There are a few more female blossoms starting to form now as well.


The Green Dragon Burpless finally has a little cucumber! I need to look up when these started producing last year, it feels like they have been very slow this year.


The yellow bell pepper is growing nicely. The other peppers are showing more blooms now too.


I did make this unpleasant discovery on my Roma tomato today (grrr...). I'm going to try adding some calcium (and checking their moisture) though from what I saw online today, Romas are very prone to BER, so it at least makes me feel a little better. :-)


To end on a more positive note, I've got a couple of these blooming...


The sunflowers are planted along the edges of the corn bed in an attempt to aid pollination by possibly acting as a windbreak so the pollen doesn't all get blown away in our winds. I honestly don't know if this will make a bit of difference. It was a suggestion I received over on GardenWeb and I figured it wouldn't hurt to try it. As a bonus, I plan to save the seeds- some for the birds and some to sprout for shoots to add to salads.

That's about all for right now. This week we're supposed to have temps in the 80's so I should be seeing a little more production in the garden soon (I hope!).

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10 comments:

Toni said...

Hey Amy,
We're about at the same place in our gardening experience.

I too have found some BER in my Romas. Daphne suggested using egg shell tea.

What variety are those black potatoes? They look very interesting! What do they look like on the inside?

Congratulations on your cukes & peppers!

Did you guys get that storm last night? We had a doosy here.... wind... driving rain.

Well, catch you later... your gardening friend in Wyoming.

Ribbit said...

Yuck. My romas got BER as well, actually at a higher rate than the others sitting right next to them.

Amy said...

Toni- The black potatoes are actually purple (very very dark skins though). They are pretty cool looking inside - when the rest actually mature, I'm going to post about them, so you'll get to see :-) Thanks for the eggshell tea tip. I also have some expired calcium supplement tablets I'm going to try.

ribbit-, I'm hoping the rest of the romas on the plant don't get it too. I'm headed out there in a few minutes, I have to check the other toms for BER too. My romas are in a different bed from the others so it's hard to compare varieties (the make up of the bed can be slightly different in mine)

Unknown said...

So sorry about the BER. I have it too on my Super Marzano Tomatoes in the SWC. I did some research and also found that Romas and Marzanos are prone to it too. I hope it works itself out.

Those potatoes look great and I am glad your peppers are progressing nicely now.

Amy said...

I found BER on a couple of my Neve's Azorians too but the others looked fine so far - though my indeterminates aren't loaded with fruit at this point (they're still flowering though). I hope you're finally getting a little summer up in your corner of the country!

Dan said...

The purple potatoes look great. I have never tried them before, definitely will be planting some next season. I like the look of the green dragon cucumber. It grows a long cucumber, how is the taste?

Mr. H. said...

What a beautiful sunflower. I have got to try some more colorful varieties next year. A few of our romas are also having the same problem. I did not know they were prone to BER, thanks for the tip.

Amy said...

Dan, when the rest of the purples mature, I'll post more about them - but I think they are some of the coolest looking potatoes I've ever seen. I think one of those may have been an All Blue, but it looked about the same inside, so maybe I confused which one it was. I grew the Green Dragon last year and I really liked the taste. They reminded me a little of the "English" cucumbers at the store. If they dry out enough to wilt, they will get bitter but otherwise mine weren't (I always seem to have trouble with bitterness).

Mr H - the sunflowers came from a mix called "Autumn Beauty Mixed Colors" that I got at Home Depot this spring. I have some yellows starting to open now too, but I do like the reddish ones a lot. I do hope my seeds/shoots idea works out. I had some on a salad at a restaurant once and they were a nice addition. Sometimes a winter salad just needs some more oomph...

Just Jenn said...

I feel your pain with the BER... The sunflower is gorgeous though!

Amy said...

Thanks Jenn! I noticed there's another pretty one (a red/yellow combo) today. If the hail didn't beat it up, I'll try to remember to add a pic.