Veggie Garden Update July 16, 2011

I can’t believe how fast time flies when you are busy. I just wish I could save some winter time in Time Bank and then in summer draw few hours here and there back. Anyway, we went with Tillsonburg Horticultural Society on 3 day tour of gardens in Gray & Bruce Counties in Southern Ontario so there was no garden work, just automatic irrigation. The tour was great thanks to incredible talent of our past president (yup, I am a member now). I will make post on some gardens later on when I wade through few hundreds of pictures. Digital cameras are great but at times they can be a real pain in the ass because it is so easy to get carried away. Enough of small talk and back to my small but very productive garden.

When I’ve planted cucumbers back in March I had no idea how many cukes they will give me. I am not complaining, I am just amazed. I pick about half a dozen a day from 2 plants growing on trellis in container.

I planted 3 varieties of peppers, all grown from seed as every other vegetable and herb in my garden. The “Green to Red” (from Johnny’s Seeds) is red already! I might pick some in next few days, maybe for my grilled pizza on BBQ.

Eggplant Greta is full of flowers and one eggplant is already about 3” long and ivory white as promised. This one will be grilled for a sandwich when ready.

Only beans I am not picking yet are the Chinese Yard Long beans. The yellow bush and French green string-less are picked daily and are very productive with great taste.

The daikon leaves were shading my tomato plants so I pulled some out and rest got serious haircut, again. The roots are decent size and very hot, right up my alley. They are next year repeat but in another location.

Margarita

We are really getting slammed with tomatoes already. Only one variety, Margarita, Roma type, is still green. However, that one plant has so many fruits on it that I will have to construct some sort of support. Not only there are many tomatoes, they are also quite large.

Since I thought that snow peas were done I pulled them out and to my surprise I picked about a quart of pods in different stages of maturity. I worked in some manure into old pea bed to get it ready for Amish Snap Peas that Ferdzy, author of “Seasonal Ontario Food”, thinks about so highly. I bought my seeds on EBay and they are, supposedly, organic and non-GMO. They will go in as soon as I get them.

Except for eggplants and yard long beans everything is being picked every day. Time to find some good recipe for pickles, I have way too many to eat fresh off the vine.