Thursday, July 16, 2009

Goings on in the veggie garden

I think I am going to finally have the tomato harvest of my dreams! Barring any unfortunate attacks or disease that is. We’ve got over 100 tomatoes ripening with more blooms everyday, there are 5 different varieties. Below, on the left is the Patio tomato, bred for growing in a pot on the patio, on the right is the Early Girl. Same growing exact conditions, it’s remarkable how small and compact the Patio variety is compared to the Early Girl. I wished I would have known about this one when I was an apartment gardener.This is the other group of 3 tomatoes - yellow pear in the middle and 2 heirlooms on the sides.
The basil is finally taking off too! I was determined to grow it from seed this year, no store bought starters. I’ve got purple ruffles and Italian large leaf.
I’ve already celebrated the first mini-harvest of two ripe pear tomatoes with basil and a sprinkle of garlic salt. Delicious!Our corn in a container experiment is having its ups and downs. It’s tasseling which means no more height, and as you can see it is rather diminutive. That is ginger mint growing at the base…which smells divine when I water or rustle the leaves.
On the up-side we have ears starting to emerge…yea!
The peppers are doing fabulous, the yellow are hot Hungarian and the green are sweet Italian. I like watching them grow even more than cooking with them.And happy Carrots! Two tubs worth. I've thinned them out and used the tiny little carrots on a salad, no chopping required!
The salad greens made an early exit as they were not happy with the heat, so more peppers replaced them. They are just settling in and will hopefully take off with our current little heat wave. The cucumbers have 5 blossoms now. When I planted them I had visions of crazy wild vines; so far that is not reality. I still have hope.
One of my largest success stories were the snap peas. How I loved the peas. I could snack on them (shell and all) while I was gardening and fill a bowl for eating later. Next year I will plant 3 times the amount! Maybe I’ll plant another crop this fall when it cools down a bit, has anyone ever tried planting a fall crop of peas?

Since the peas were obviously done for the season, I ripped them out and moved the Horseradish to the container. I also dug up a small Horseradish that was elsewhere in the garden and moved it to the container. This is what it looked like when I dug it up.
Somehow I missed noticing that its leaves were being destroyed. Can you see the little green worms on the leaf above? Here they are when I picked them off.
Gross. I cleaned up the leaves and planted them with the larger plant. Then as I was taking this picture I noticed a small black spot on the tallest leaf. Good god! Another weevil! These are my vegetable not yours! I guess nature is hungry too.
I also wanted to show you neighbor’s tomatoes. She is the one who turned me on to the wall-o-water things to get the plants going in the cool spring. I took my covers off when it warmed up. I wanted to see the plants and use the soil beneath to grow basil. She left hers on. Look at her tomatoes! They are over 7 ft tall, and loaded with fruit…if you look very closely you can make out the green plastic wall-o-waters at the very bottom of the plant. They are (approx) 2 ft tall, yet look about 10" tall in this picture!How are your veggies doing? What have you already been eating?

8 comments:

  1. I was here for Bloom Day but I had to comment on your great veggie garden all in pots. Excellent!

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  2. Wow wow! your veges are growing fast and looking good. I can still remember those planters you bought for these veges ;-) Happy Friday!

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  3. AnonymousJuly 17, 2009

    Hi DG~~ I'm impressed with your container veggie gardening. If memory serves me correctly horseradish is highly invasive so a container would be a better place. Damn those weevils! I crunched one today. It felt great. But man those worms are really difficult to spot. Kudos to your green thumb!

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  4. NICE veggies and so many of them!

    We are rather more modest in our plantings and everything is doing well but not yet producing harvest-ready food. No, actually, just yesterday we had the first zucchini from our garden. But I can't wait for our tomatoes!

    Keep up the good fight against the critters. I probably shouldn't say it but I have yet to see any bad-news bugs on our veggies. But you've shown us how bad they can be so I'm very grateful!

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  5. Nice crops. So basil from seed? I know I should have tried it, but I bought a plant instead. I don't have any vegetables at all, but I do have a little collection of herbs, but I haven't quite gotten the hang of actually using them yet. Baby steps.

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  6. Rosemarie, thanks for visiting!

    Stephanie, they are growing fast! It is amazing to look back at the pictures when I first planted them just a couple of months ago.

    Grace...you are so right about the horseradish! I visited my parents this weekend and saw this first hand. They dug out everything last fall (harvest) and thought they only left one small plant - nope! They have about 20, darn, I guess that means they'll be sharing again this harvest!

    Jane, glad you are not fighting any critters. I'm not complaining as mine haven't been too bad. Can't wait for the tomatoes!

    Megan, baby steps are the way to go! Basil from seed is easy as long as you wait until it's warm. Will you try a veggie or 2 next year?

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  7. Hello, I just came across your blog and the veggies are amazing! Do you use potting soil or garden soil in your containers?

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    1. In the very bottom there is some garden soil but then on top of that lots of good fluffy potting soil, compost, and well rotted manure.

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