The Beat Goes on

Tomatoes keep on coming. I think I had weighed a total of 10,904g through the 7th of September. Since then I have harvested another 11,917g--almost 23kg. We are feasting on them, making salsa di pomodoro for our off-season consumption. The freezer is full.

The Great Tomato Production

Tomatoes of several varieties are busting out of the vines. This morning 3,511g. That's three and a half kilos or 7.74 pounds! Tomato sauce a-coming.

The Great Potato Feast

Here is the story. Two seasons ago I threw a few potato eyes in a couple of my beds, and more in my compost. I harvested about ten pounds of potatoes at the end of the season. This past spring I did not plant any potatoes. Lo and behold, their foliage started showing up and growing, as shown here:

In one of my new raised beds in the penitentiary.

In the wagon garden.

In my window garden.

A few days ago I scraped this off the wagon garden:

The big one weighs almost a quarter kilo, 227g. Today I saw two other potatoes popping out of the soil in the window garden and I plucked them, here shown with the other harvests of the morning:

More beans, more carrots, more tomatoes and more of my mutated zucchini.

The tomatoes are coming on strong, heirloom and friends shown here. So far I have harvested 2,327g of tomatoes; made three batches of tomato sauce and frozen one. I will be keeping track of the potatoes by weight as well.

More Tomatoes

This morning I came from the garden with this catch:

The tomatoes weighed 1744g; the beans 704g.

Total tomatoes so far 3318g.

Tomato Tonnage

Weight of tomatoes harvested so far: 1574g.

Much more to come.

Special Day

 Those who know know why it's special.

This is this morning's harvest:

I found the cantaloupe detached from its stem. It was telling me "eat me, eat me." It weighs 1010g, two pounds plus, and its aroma is delectable

The beans keep on producing: 512g, more than a pound.

The tomatoes are coming are coming: 509g, more than a pound.

Then I spent a few minutes admiring the lovely bee-loved rosemary bush that, along with some happy friends surround the juniper:

Green Beans & Tomatoes

 The first batch of salsa di pomodoro for the first of many (I hope) such is on the stove. Fall, winter, and spring fare:

There will be more beans this late summer. This morning's catch was three quarters of a kilo. Almost two lbs. I froze the batch in four pouches for later consumption. Freezer full of beans (and awaiting tomato sauce):

Go Tomatoes!

However late, and for whatever reason, my tomatoes are ripenng. Here is this morning's catch, on a bed of green beans with a neighborhood friend:

The tomatoes weighed 855g, nearly two pounds, and because the crop promises to be good, I will be weighing my tomatoes as I pick them. Meanwhile the beans keep producing at a prodigious rate. The zucchini have been coming too, a variety that seems to have mutated: these grow on long vines, and are thicker than your common zucchini. Delicious.

And look what's coming:

These are my heirloom tonatoes.

and these are my San Marzano.

August 22 update

1. I received this response to my inquiry of Aug 4 from the U of A extension division:

I believe this is cat facing.  Here is a link about some challenges in 
growing tomatoes.

https://extension.arizona.edu/tomato-challenges

This is very helpful. Incidentally, that was the only tomato affected by the problem.

2. The good. My green beans have produced most abundantly, both the bush and the pole variety. Every morning I spend an average of half an hour harvesting beans. I have many packets of frozen beens in the freezer.

The tomatoes are growing beautifully. They are late, but gorgeous. The spinach has come up. The bok choy is growing. The chard is producing, as are the few carrots I planted. Cilantro has gone to seed.

3. The bizarre. I had five pole bean plants in one of my raised gardend close to the greenhouse. One by one, over a period of a few days, each had been severed, about 3-5 inches from the soil. I could not guess who or what was the culprit.

Then, in the greenhouse, I discovered that one of my two cantaloupes had been cut at the stem, and a good portion of it had been eaten. I put a trap out and a couple of hours later found a large rat had been caught and destroyed. Good riddance. I am assuming the rat is who did a number on my pole beans, By the way, we ate the remaining cantaloupe (properly trimmed) and it was delicious.

4. The bad. Yesterday I caught this rascal on a tomato leaf in the greenhouse:

For some reason I find these critters disgusting, especially when I cut them into pieces.

Until next time...

Tomato problem

 I have a problem to solve: indentify and treat what is ailing this tomato growing in an otherwise healthy plant.

These are not insect bites, but, I think a growth of some kind (that I tried scraping).

Better late than never

I noticed that I unloaded my manure on March 19, which is more than four months ago! Can I get back on track and post some snapshots of the creatures in my garden? Let's try!

It has been my experience that volunteer plants do very well, often better than those planted by design. The volunteers, of course, come from my black gold, my lovely compost. Here is one example, a watermelon that spilled out of my raised garden, and is growing well:

And here is another, one (of two growing) cantaloupes that popped out of a container in my greenhouse:

Not far from maturity, I would say.

And here are some tomatoes, also in my greenhouse, spontaneously grown, not by plan:

These are my old faithful heirloom tomatoes.

I suppose the moral of the story is that I should quit planting things and just wait for them to come up on their own... and dispose of my spate of spades (some are gifts from loved ones--couldn't do that) and other tools:

Not so fast! My beans are doing well, and those I planted, along with red chard, also doing well. What is not doing well is spinach, but I will try another crop as the weather cools off. And off I go...

Time to unload my manure

 Here it is, a pick-up load of good horse manure

Return to my blog?

I spent half the afternoon trying to log in to this account, and then I did it, but don't know how ... We'll see if I can actually start posting again.