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Wednesday, August 31, 2016

Margaret was right!

Last week, Margaret at Homegrown posted a picture of two beautiful caterpillars she'd found on her dill plant. When I commented that I had lots of dill but hadn't seen any caterpillars, she told me to keep my eyes open.

Well, yesterday after work, I was outside, and I glanced at the dill in the herb garden. Guess what I found?

This guy:


He was pretty big and hard to miss. After I saw him, I looked more closely, and there were others.

Two on this plant:


and another over here:


I had seen a black swallowtail flitting around the herb garden on several occasions, so I shouldn't have been surprised to find the caterpillars, but it was still a wonderful discovery.

Today, I was only able to find one. The big guy might've been big enough to have moved on to working on his chrysalis. I've read that they just disappear and are not often seen in that stage. If his chrysalis is anywhere in the jungle that is the herb garden, there is little chance I will find it, but I will definitely be growing more dill next year.


Monday, August 22, 2016

Harvest Monday 8.22.16

There wasn't much variety out of the garden this week. The pepper plants are empty and hardly have any blooms. The zucchini is still valiantly plugging away, but the fruits are rotting. I put the cucumber out of its misery. This week was almost all about tomatoes.

I picked the biggest tomato so far...


an Italian Heirloom, just over a pound.

The Nebraska Wedding tomatoes (yellow) have really started to ripen.



And, obviously, so have the Mexico Midgets.


I took a big bowl of them to work to share one day, and they were gone in less than 10 minutes.

The little gherkins continue to drop off the vine...


and I keep making people taste them.

The small Roma-looking tomatoes are from a volunteer that I let grow. I have no idea what it is, but I'm happy to have the tomatoes.

So far I haven't had enough tomatoes and enough time at the same time to do any canning. I have made a couple batches of roasted tomato sauce, which have gone into the freezer. I've also put a few whole tomatoes in the freezer. Hopefully, I'll eventually get enough for canning.

To round out the week, I went out to the garden earlier this evening and found a few green beans.


Not enough to do anything with yet, but I'll take them.

Linking up with Our Happy Acres for Harvest Monday.

Friday, August 19, 2016

The good

I promised I would show some of the good in the garden. Obviously, every time I post a Harvest Monday, I am showing the good, but there's more that I haven't shown.

The three morning glory seeds I planted started slow, but have become a huge mass of vines.


I swear it was only three seeds. This photo was taken last week, and there is even less of the mail box visible now. I think I'm going to have to trim some of it back, or the mailman is going to stop delivering my mail.

The first blooms appeared a few days ago.



My butternut squash plant has five or six good sized squash on it. I check the stems every day, and a couple are getting close.


To go with all of that squash, I have a massive patch of sage in the herb garden.


Speaking of the herb garden, I have never had a garden turn out looking like I imagined until this herb garden this year. Everything has grown so well.

August 13th

May 14th
See what I mean? There are plenty of weeds in there, and whenever I look under things I find yucca sprouts, but there are also masses of basil, dill, sage, thyme and, of course, zinnias. I always forget how big zinnias get.

Despite a rocky start, the green beans are now covered with blossoms.


Since this photo was taken, I have also noticed a few small pods. I found more Japanese beetles on them today, though, so I might spray again.

Last but not least, the peach tree is growing like crazy.


March 13th
I don't know when I will get my first peaches, but it might be big enough next year to make a little shade.

Monday, August 15, 2016

Harvest Monday 8.15.16

Over the past couple weeks, most of my harvests have been pretty much the same...a motley mix of tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers.

August 3rd

August 5th
I did pick my first Nebraska Wedding tomato last week. It's much smaller than the Italian Heirlooms have been.

6.25 ounces

August 9th
Another notable harvest was the very first Mexican Sour Gherkins. These guys are cool because they fall off the plant when they're ripe. You just have to make sure you don't step on them. Ahem.
August 9th
It took me a couple days to get up enough nerve to try them. They are definitely unique. They taste a little like watermelon, but there is a little hint of sour. It's the texture that I wasn't expecting. The inside is a lot like a cherry tomato, but the skin is almost like an apple. It crunches when you bite it.

My zucchini plant gifted me with a surprise zucchini. I really didn't think I'd get anymore, but now I guess I get to eat zucchini carrot fritters one more time this summer.

August 13th
Although, we've actually discovered that grilled zucchini is delicious, too. Maybe I can get one more before the season's over.

August 13th
So darn cute

August 14th
I didn't get very many potatoes this year, but they are delicious. We roasted some of the smallest ones on the grill last night and ate them with tuna steaks. Not a bad meal to enjoy on the deck.

The basil is getting past its prime, so I cut down a bunch of it yesterday and made some more pesto.
August 14th
I freeze pesto in muffin tins. Ice cubes are such small portions, and a muffin size is closer to what we eat.

Looking back, I see that I've actually gotten quite a variety out of the garden lately. To see what others are harvesting, check out Our Happy Acres' Harvest Monday.

Sunday, August 14, 2016

Still here...and the bad

I keep walking around the garden taking pictures and then not writing blog posts. I think part of the reason is that there are so many things about the garden right now that aren't good. There's a point every summer where the garden looks like a jungle, there are weeds everywhere, and pests are taking their toll. This year all of those things, together with the weather, are having noticeable consequences.

The thing about a garden, though, is that for everything bad there seems to be something good. In the spirit of catharsis, then, here are some bad things about the garden.

One of the absolute worst things this year is the Japanese beetles. I've never seen them this bad where I live. You can see their damage all over town. A local garden center says it's because last summer was so wet that the larva, which usually die in the dry August soil, thrived. That's not good news because this summer is also wet.

I've seen them everywhere. In addition to marigolds


and salvia

I've seen them on basil, zinnias, green beans (of course), morning glories, cucumbers and last, but not least, the linden trees.


They've done so much damage to the two small lindens in my front yard that I'm concerned the trees won't survive. I have no great love for lindens, and would be happy to replace them with oak trees, but when it comes to shade, I'd rather not have to start over. These two trees are 15 feet tall. I have sprayed with pyrethrin and will be treating with milky spore before the summer is over. The one bright spot is that, although I've removed a couple from the peach tree, it shows no signs of damage.

My cucumber plant has slowly been succumbing to something. I'm guessing bugs, but I really haven't seen very many. For awhile, it was still sending out new vines, while the old ones were withering, but it's pretty much all dying now.



The tomatoes seem to be suffering from everything. I think there is some blight, but this one looks like it might have something else as well.


I have been picking tomatoes, but I'm not getting quite enough to can and some of them are rotting before we can eat them. I have yet to pick an Amish paste, but some of them have rotted on the vine. All of the plants are still pretty lush, however, and there are quite a few green tomatoes.

Something has been nibbling on the peppers, both varieties.


The bites are fairly small, though, so I just cut around them.

I dug up the potatoes today. It looks like there are quite a few potatoes, but most of them are no bigger around than a quarter.


I was actually surprised to get anything because I had only seen a couple blooms on the plants. I'm guessing the prolonged hot spell we had is the culprit.

When I spell them all out, they don't seem that bad. I can already think of quite a few good things, but I'll save those for another post.

Monday, August 1, 2016

Harvest Monday 8.1.16

Since I didn't post last week, I get to cover two weeks of harvests today. I still won't come close to some of the amazing harvests that others post at Our Happy Acres' Harvest Monday, but I have fun trying!

July 20th was a day of seconds; my second handful of Mexico Midget tomatoes, my second zucchini, my second Healthy sweet pepper, and, of course, more cucumbers.


A few days later, I picked my first Napoleon bell peppers.


I managed to get that scrunched up guy off the plant without destroying either the pepper or the plant. One of those peppers went right into a batch of my special quesadilla filling with a homegrown onion and some farmer's market tomatoes.

The Mexico Midgets are ripening pretty steadily now.


I've been picking a handful every few days. When the first cherry tomatoes ripen, and you get your first taste of sunshiny, tomato goodness, it's hard to imagine there will come a day when you don't want to pick anymore cherry tomatoes. It inevitably happens every year, though, and seeing how fast this plant is spreading, and how many green tomatoes it holds, I know the day is coming.

Late last week, I decided to pull the rest of my carrots. In one bed, they were being overrun by the cucumber plant, and in the other, they were just harboring weeds.


This is by far the best carrot year I've ever had. I did plant more than usual, but I also had better germination than I've ever had. Even trimmed up, it's a lot of carrots.


In addition to the carrots and more cucumbers, I also picked some kale that day. More for the freezer and more for smoothies.


With so many cucumbers, and plenty of dill in the herb garden, I decided to try making something I've never made before.

dill pickles

The cucumbers were probably a little big for pickles, but I don't really care. I haven't had the nerve to taste them yet, however. I also made some pickled carrots, but I forgot to take a picture of them.

Last, but certainly not least, I picked my first full size tomato on Saturday!


It's an Italian Heirloom, and it was followed on Sunday by four more.


They're pretty good sized tomatoes. The five of them together weighed almost four pounds. The biggest was 14.5 ounces.


A large portion of last night's dinner was a sliced tomato sprinkled with balsamic vinegar and fresh cut basil. If that doesn't taste like summer, I don't know what does.