Last of the Sweet Corn

 Today I picked the last of our Sweet Corn.  Out of two raised beds, 50 stalks each, we have been eating Sweet Corn for three weeks.  That's pretty good.  We've shared with the neighbors, and frozen for winter and had as much as we wanted to eat.  I planted Solstice and Gotta Have It.  Solstice is a 70 day corn, and Gotta Have it is a 78 day corn and I planted them a week apart.  The Solstice produced 40 ears and the other produced 50.

This week I got tired of one of my Dwarf tomatoes spreading blight so I hacked it out.  It was the Kookaburra Cackle which wasn't a bad tomato but both plants picked up blight early on and spread it to the Adelaide and the Summertime Gold and those plants resisted quite well so I don't think they would have had a problem on their own.  Kookaburra was also dropping green tomatoes left and right.  I have plenty of tomatoes without having to deal with that sort of hassle  

I then removed all of the diseased leaves off of the remaining plants.  Just look what heavy producers these plants are.  I have already picked half a dozen or more off each one.

Adelaide Festival

Summertime Gold

Because I removed so much foliage, I threw a 30% shade cloth over them so they wouldn't sun scald.

They will be just fine like this for the remainder of the season.  I am getting some really gorgeous slicing tomatoes out of the other bed with almost no blight or disease problems at all.

Clockwise from upper left:  Pike Co, Barlow, another Pike Co. Carbon and another Barlow

Tonight I made a jar of my sweet/hot pickled peppers.

Instructions in this past Blog: Of Pickled Peppers

Carbon Tomatoes

Not the first tomatoes of the year... but I've been waiting for this gorgeous clump of tomatoes to turn for weeks now.

  These all came off of the same Carbon tomato plant.  

Carbon is such a nice, consistent producer that the plant's habit reminds me very much of Celebrity.

Mmm... they're just gorgeous!  A couple for me and then more to share.  I'll let them ripen a bit more on the counter, but I had to get them out of that tangle of a plant before they got too soft.

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.

Busy Bees and Baby Veggies

 The little eggplants are starting to look promising.

The first ripe tomato was a Micro Tina.  It tasted just as good but was only the size of a gumdrop

The slicing tomatoes are starting to size up.  It will still be weeks before they begin to ripen.

The Queen Anne's Lace and the Dill are extraordinarily popular with all of the pollinators.  I would guess there are hundreds in there from Wasps to Sweat Bees.  The Honey Bees are on the white clover in the lawn and the Thyme under the Apple tree.  But they are also stopping by the Cucumber flowers.  And I found a Bumble Bee pollinating the Zucchini this morning.  Everyone has a job to do.

I almost forgot

Daylily of the Day:  Stella Supreme

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.