The Long Awaited Cantaloupe

 Today I picked the first ripe Cantaloupe and it is good.  Not quite as good as last year's, but a lot better than a store bought one.  These are from the seeds I saved from last year's best Cantaloupe.  The ripening date is 10 days later than last year which isn't bad considering that I didn't even transplant these until the middle of June and last year they were volunteers and already rooted in sometime in late May.  I cut it up and put it in the fridge so I can have it for breakfast in the morning.  They are always better chilled.  I have another dozen of similar size (small) out there ripening.  Not bad for six vines.

Yesterday I picked the first of the Chelsea Prize English Cucumbers.  They are not growing very long, but this one was good.  Very crisp.  The variety is Parthenocarpic which means it will produce fruit without pollination.  That actually makes it perfect for this late in the season because since the nights started to get cold there have been few pollinators in the garden.  All of the buzzy things are spending their days in the compost tube where it is warm and they can feast on sweet kitchen scraps.

The vines look deplorable but they are producing and that is what matters.

Sweet Pickle Relish

 My Bell Peppers finally started to color up so yesterday I canned Sweet Pickle Relish.  I followed This Recipe and added one large bell pepper for a little color variation.  I would have preferred to use a red one, but I only had yellow so I threw in one orange Havasu hot pepper because it was ready to use.   My total poundage for Cucumbers, Peppers and Onions (pre dicing) was 4 pounds and that yielded three pints plus a little leftover to use right away.  Three pints will easily get us through one year.

This didn't really make a dent in the backlog of pickling cucumbers that I have harvested but I have found that I am enjoying eating the picklers just as much as the big, burpless slicers.  They are very crisp, especially if you take the time to cut out the seeds.

Now I have only to wait for my Havasu Peppers to ripen so I can make pickled peppers and then my preserving will be done for the summer.  I have frozen two gallons of Beans and we are working through the second bed of Sweet Corn, freezing a little at a time.  The Gotta Have It Sweet Corn has been just as excellent as the Solstice was.

Picking and Poking

Today I picked enough beans to freeze a gallon.

Then I caught up on picking pickling Cucumbers.  A few got too big.

And I planted the spare Clarimore Zucchini plant where the slicing Cucumbers were taken out.  Back in the high humidity of July, after a rainstorm, the original plant exhibited one very wilty leaf.  Concerned that it was the beginning of wilt disease or an indicaton of Squash Vine Borer damage, I immediately cut that leaf off and sowed a potential replacement.  It has been hanging out in a gallon pot where it has recently decided it can't make it through the day on its allotment of water.  It will be easier to keep watered in the ground and it can go ahead and crank out too many squash.

A morning Sunflower....

 

Viney Things

 Below is an excellent example of the Cucumber support trellis letting the fruit hang down so they are perfectly straight and easy to find.  Those three are all on the same vine.  I always buy my Cucumber seed from Johnny's Seeds because they seem to have the best disease resistant hybrid varieties.  These are Gateway.

Two years ago I saved seeds from a Pumpkin I bought at the store in October.  I didn't get around to planting them last year, but this year I found a spot.  The largest has gone past basketball size and is starting to turn orange.

The next two are approaching basketball size.  Oddly enough, because the Ppumpkin I bought was undoubtedly a hybrid, some of the Pumpkins are coming out yellow.  There have been more yellows at the base of the blooms, but this one is the only one that has set and stayed.

My second generation "Compost Queen Cantaloupes" have produced a dozen fruit.  

They are looking more smooth than segmented.  We'll see....

The first blush of color on the slicing tomatoes.  It may be hard to see, but I am looking closely every day and I see it.

Today was a colorful harvest.  Cherry Tomatoes, an Eggplant and some orange Bell Peppers.

The Candy Onions are beginning to fall over showing that they are done growing and ready to cure.  I put them in the shade every day until the green leaves dry and turn brown.

Dahlia of the Day:  Happy Single Date 

One petal has dropped off, but the Bumble Bees still love it.

Everything Cucumber

 It is Cucumber season.  These are number 4, 5 and 6.  Soon I will be having them for breakfast and lunch.

I have started collecting up Pickling Cucumbers for Dill Slices.

OOPS!

That's OK.  These over grown picklers are just as good to eat as slicing Cucumbers.  There are all kinds of things to find hiding in vines,

Cantaloupe

Pumpkin

Micro Tomatoes

And the wild Blackberries are starting to ripen.

Pickle Season Has Begun

 My pickling cucumber vines have been producing very well.  It took three days of picking to gather a hydrator full of cucumbers.  There are four pounds here.  I also picked my first slicing cucumber today and there are three or four that will be ready in a day or two.   I like to pick pickling cukes quite small to get more small slices to cram into the jars.  A couple of them got away from me and got too big, but still not over ripe.

I wanted to put some onions in the jars this time.  I've never done that, but as a child one of my Mom's good friends made pickles with her grandmother every year from her own garden and my favorite part of the pickles were the little rings of pickled onions in each jar.

I just use Mrs. Wages quick process packets, but this year, since I have peppers and onions handy, I plan to experiment with pickle spices from scratch and make some sweet relish.  We do not use much relish, so two or three pints will keep us in relish all year.  But first I have to make the dill slices to store.

I made six pints to store, which is about how many we will use in a year.  There is also a seventh, lightly packed jar with some of the largest slices that I will open first to use,

Red-Spotted Purple Butterfly on Vanilla Marigolds

P.S. I just went out and picked my first handful of Seychelles pole beans for supper.  The Monte Gusto, despite being thriftier than the others, have just blossomed.  They should only be three days behind the others but they are lagging.

Early July Vegetable Update

 I like to go through about twice a month and just take photos of each raised bed so i can compare year to year.  This year's garden is feeling pretty good... that is until Facebook popped a photo of mounds of colorful, blooming Nasturtium from a few years ago.  Okay, my Nasturtium are still tiny this year.  But overall, this is one of my best tended gardens and the list of things to change next year is very, very short.

The peas came out yesterday.  They were still green and beautiful, but completely picked clean.  The best part was - not a weed to be seen.

That bed has now had mulch added, the open pollinated Dahlias from seed I saved last year are transplanted and the other end is set up for a later planting of Cucumbers which are seeded in cells.  The Dahlias were starting to suffer, and their little tubers were poking through the drain holes, but they will turn around quickly.

Here are the rest of the beds one by one:

Pickling Cucumbers and Slicing Cucumbers
I am going to keep these from mingling in the center so when the pickles have been made, the vines can come out.

From the other side.  They are flowering, and will soon be shading the Celery

Solstice Sweet Corn planted May 20th

Gotta Have It planted June 1st

Clarimore and Dunja Zucchini together
It took about three tries and a dozen seeds but I finally got a Dunja plant.

Cantaloupe and Pumpkin

Cole Crops

Cauliflower

Golden Acre Cabbage

Indeterminate Tomatoes

Carbon babies

Bell Peppers full of buds

Potted Bells

Havasu Peppers

Havasu Baby

Sweet Potatoes, Carrots and Herbs
I have been pulling a lot of carrots

Dill, Sunflowers, Sweet Potatoes and Eggplant

Sunflowers soon

The Pole Bean bed still looks ragged, but things are good in there

First seeding of Seychelles is climbing

Dwarf Tomatoes and Onions

I am still learning about this growing Onions from seed thing.
The one in the middle is one of mine, and the larger on each side are the nursery grown Candy Onions

Dwarf Tomatoes

Setting fruit

Micro Tomato

I am proud of this Eggplant.  These are the two spare plants I hid on top of the potting bench which ended up rallying and out growing the other pair I had in a larger pot.  I have switched the pots now so the larger plants are in the larger pot.  Not long ago Aphids found these and I spent about a week spraying with Neem Oil every morning.  Now I am getting an occasional flea beetle but the Aphids are finally gone.  I wrote at length in this blog entry about my love of soft, blemish free Eggplant leaves.

Yukon Gold Potatoes
I dug a plant the other day and they are beautiful and scab free.  Iron-tone (with a 17% sulfur content) seems to have done the trick on that.