Tomatoes

We are on the downward slope of this year's tomato harvest. Weekly harvest weights have been 125#, 140#, and 90#. There are about 100 quart jars of tomatos in the pantry, plus about 20 pints of pizza sauce, and another 32 of salsa. That should hold us for a year, give or take visits from college students...

The rest of the garden is enduring summer heat. The indian popcorn is showing tassles, zucchini are drying up, bell peppers are doing great, Hubbard squash look to be ripe, and there are some lima beans setting. We still have carrots but they are starting to get tough and spouting big tops to make seed.

We had a minor infestation of squash bugs show up on the Hubbard so had to break out an insecticide spray for the first time. Also noticed a couple of tomato horn worms this past weekend, but we've rarely had to do anything about them as the summer heat puts an end to the tomato patch before they really become a problem.

Last of all the grapes are all turning color and will soon be ready for harvest. We had an unfortunate experience this year with skeletonizers. They at first seemed to be under control from the systemic pesticide we typically use, but after three weeks of not paying attention we found several vines severely damaged and had to remove about 50% of the grape clusters, hoping they will still have the energy to sweeten the remaining crop. No leaves, no solar energy conversion into sugar. If that doesn't teach you to be diligent and monitor things once a week I don't know what will.

All in all a great garden so far this year that will meet our needs. Oh, and the onions and garlic are fantastic, and the kiwi are getting larger and starting to climb the trellis we made for them. Can't wait to have our own fresh kiwi!

Tomatoes are in season

Picked 124 pounds of tomatoes today, which we then processed into 35 quarts of bottled juice. We shred the tomatoes through a salsa screen, which leaves the tomato pulp in larger pieces but still removes most of the skin and cores. It's nice to see the pantry filling up again after last year's poor harvest. We were down to about a dozen jars of tomato juice from 2009 and 2010.

Busy Gardening

Sorry for the long pause between posts. The garden has kept us busy. The past two weeks we picked enough tomatoes to bottle a few jars, and this past weekend we made salsa with tomatoes, onions, garlic, and cilantro all from the garden. Our peppers are not doing well so we had to buy those.

Tomato tally thus far is about 75 pounds. We are also getting golden zucchini about twice a week, and green beans once a week. Tonight we bottled a few pints of green beans and are looking forward to more - they are so good fresh from the garden steamed with a bit of salt and butter.

We have also been busy with the Apricot tree. Picked about 60 pounds from the one tree and made lots of jam and fruit leather. Pictures are on the way.

May is here



First golden zucchini




First tomatoes of the season



May marks the season of full production in our garden. Last weekend we picked the first handfuls of tomatoes, and notes that the apricots are turning from green to yellow. We also enjoyed a couple of golden zucchini - a welcome addition to the dinner table after the first batch of plants failed to thrive. The popcorn we planted where the peas and broccoli were has also sprouted so we'll hopefully have some corn this summer.

Photos of the garden from early April to the end of April show a huge change has taken place, from a few scattered plants to a sea of different shades of green. This is the time when it is fun and rewarding to see all of the different plants doing their thing - different colors of green and different stages of producing fruit. We even enjoyed shredded beef chimichangas seasoned with fresh garlic, onion, sage, rosemary, and cilantro. So rewarding to have all of that fresh in the backyard.



Beginning of April





End of April





Current Garden Events

There has been a bit of activity recently. We harvested and removed the last of the peas, broccoli, and beets. In the resulting void, we planted a special variety of popcorn most people use as Halloween decoration. The tiny dark red cobs of corn that are sharply pointed. It's a favorite treat of ours and easy to grow (if the birds will leave the germinating seeds alone). A few current events in the photo collage:

Top left: Onions. Set these out when they were about the size of individual blades of grass.

Top center: Garlic. Can't tell from a photo this far away, but onions and garlic are easy to tell apart, plus there's always the smell test. Bruise a leaf and you'll know which it is.

Top right: Kiwi. A new experiment this year. We'll see how they do. Looks like they are suffering a bit from iron chlorosis which is caused by pH chemically locking up iron in the soil. This causes leaves to turn yellowish and in severe cases white which is quickly followed by death of the plant. An iron spray should take care of this.

Bottom right: Frontenac grapes that have just set in the last few days. These can reach over 26% sugar when ripe - you can almost pour the juice directly on pancakes instead of syrup.

Bottom center: Onions under a bench. These got a little tall and started coming up through the seat. Between the two patches of onions shown here, we won't need to buy any at the store for the next year.

Bottom left: Wonderful Pomegranate blossom. These are now in full bloom. We have been spraying for fungus every two weeks for the past couple of months trying to ward off a fungal infection we had trouble with last year. Once the fruit is set these just need water until November.

Center: Current view into the center of the garden. The bare spot is where peas, broccoli, and beets were removed last week and (hopefully) red popcorn will soon be growing.

Watering Systems

Drip irrigation is the way to go for the garden, trees, and other landscape plants. Aside from an occasional plugged emitter, it is essentially maintenance free and the automatic timer doesn't forget or go on vacation. We did have a problem recently with plants along our back fence, which faces south. It is always hotter there due to reflected heat. First we doubled the drip lines, and it was still dry. Then we added a soaker hose and that seemed to really help. A couple years later several grape vines died and after searching for a cause I finally dug a hole found the soil barely moist. The soaker hose wasn't soaking any longer, and so we added more drip emitters. We have two rows of grapes in the back, one next to the wall, and another about eight feet away next to the garden. The grapes next to the garden always do better because they get more water and don't have to fight the heat... big surprise. So the point here is that you should check the watering system at least every six months, and if plants are in an area that gets lots of sun or reflected heat, they will need more emitters or should be on a separate timer so they get water longer or more often.

Grapes

For those who keep grape vines, many interesting things are taking place at this time. Depending on the variety, they are blooming or getting ready to. You might have seen a pesky dark blue moth flying around which is indicative of a problem about to begin. These moths lay eggs on the leaves that left to their own devices can defoliate the entire vine. There are simple remedies available. Pick off the leaves that have eggs on them (requires lots of attention). Spray with BT worm killer. This is a bacterium that infects the gut of the worms. There are also systemic controls (key ingredient "imidacloprid") which means one treatment about this time of year takes care of it. We use the latter.


Black Monukka grape - much larger cluster than below.

 Black Monukka is an old variety from the middle east. It doesn't mind our heat and we've never had issues with pests or disease of any kind. Most grapes are fine with heat but you have to be aware of the acidity levels of the fruit as heat will tend to remove this characteristic, leaving you with a flat sugary juice (we don't make wine). They are vigorous, and will grow 20 feet or so in a season, and require cane pruning. If you want to cover an entire block wall, this is the ticket. If you want to harvest juice though, you might consider other varieties as the skins of these grapes is quite astringent/bitter and that flavor comes through in the juice. Beautiful burgundy red juice and they are nearly seedless.


Valiant grape in bloom

 Valiant grapes make a wonderful dark blue juice. The clusters are small and compact, and we have had less trouble keeping pests (like the western grapeleaf skeletonizer - a blue moth) under control. These have limited growth so they won't take over the entire yard, they bear a lot of fruit, and are early so you will harvest in July most years. It's actually a very cold-hardy variety, but we've found that it does well here because you can harvest before the worst of the summer heat sets in. Valiants require cordon pruning to spurs of three buds each. This is our favorite variety thus far, of those we have tried.


This year we are experimenting with two new grape varieties - Steuben and Baco Noir. Both are vigorous, high in acid, and have large grapes. We want them to cover the back wall of the yard, and are hoping the heat of summer takes down the acid levels enough to make a nice juice. When grapes ripen, what is actually happening is acid levels are falling off while sugar levels are rising. You want to harvest at the right time to get the best flavor - too early = tart juice, too late = pure sugar with little flavor, just right = sweet juice with wonderful flavor.

For those interested in grapes as a backyard adventure, we have much information to share. We have grown the following varieties:

Black Monukka (no pest issues but skins have bitter flavor)
Valiant (very sweet, dark blue juice, few pest issues, mild iron deficiency)
Frontenac (mildew issues, very sweet pink/magenta juice)
Concord Seedless (removed when we discovered they will not ripen evenly in hot weather)
Thompson Seedless (pure sugar flavor, birds love these and they are best eaten fresh)
Christmas (supposed to be like Concord for hot weather, but ours never ripened properly)
New York Muscat (on third year of this experiment, may be too warm for them to color or have any flavor)
Sunbelt (could not tolerate our soil pH and suffered severe iron deficiency)
Flame Seedless (issues with mildew and skeletonizers, we removed these in favor of Valiant and Frontenac)