Harvest Monday - July 29, 2013

This past weekend, I pulled all the determinate tomatoes to get ready for the Fall garden. I'm thinking of trying cucumbers again this year (last year I lost everything because of powdery mildew), maybe some collard greens and beans. I hate cleaning up, but one upside was the pretty good size harvest of tomatoes - probably the largest from the balcony.

The yellow tomatoes are the golden dwarf champions, the medium size tomatoes on the top right are dwarf champions, the large tomatoes on top are the Coeur de Boeuf, and the little orange, red, and green tomatoes are a combination of Minigold and Husky Red

Couldn't resist a second angle:)

I froze the dwarf tomatoes, made salsa with the green tomatoes, and eating the red cherries and minigold as snack. I'm thinking of freezing some more tomatoes. I still have the cherokee purple, coeur de boeuf and dwarf champion (both red and yellow) variety left. They don't look so hot so maybe they will not produce anymore, but even if it doesn't I think I had a very good tomato season this year!

Very delicious edamame!

I also got a harvest of edamame - these are so delicious! Next year I think I will try to plant more edamame plants.

I am linking to Daphne's Harvest Monday! I hope all your garden is doing well.

Harvest Monday July 22, 2013

Wow, I can't believe it has been over a month since posting! The balcony garden is doing well, as well as the community garden raised bed garden. I ended up purchasing the fancy texas tomato cage for the raised bed garden - I feel this has probably made a huge difference in the size of the plant. The supersweet 100 plant is like 6 ... maybe even 7 feet tall. And the tomatoes are so much bigger than what I got last year.

The tomatoes I'm growing on the balcony are mostly determinate or dwarf variety that Carol shared with me. I has been pretty amazing. I've been harvest a lot of tomatoes from both locations. It has been just fantastic! Here are some pictures

Minigold tomato..or is it?

This minigold tomato is very curious. After reading about these tomatoes on Carol's blog, I was expecting them to be bright yellow - but it turns out it is bright orange - almost like a sungold. These taste wonderful - but maybe it is some new hybrid variety. I've saved some seeds so it will be interesting to see what kind of fruit it will produce next year!

From Balcony: More minigold tomato and a couple of bush beans before the plant died...

From Balcony: More minigold (so productive!) and dwarf champion and golden dwarf champion tomatoes

From Balcony: Edamame, semi-final minigold harvest, dwarf champion, golden dwarf, cherokee purple

From community garden: Baxter bush cherry, supersweet 100 and cherokee purple

I am sitting here writing while nibbling on the edamame. This is my first time growing it and it tastes SOOOOO good. I love edamame, but these freshly harvested edamame are the sweetest and most delicious ones I've ever had. I'm going to try to grow some more - maybe I can squeeze one more crop before winter? I have to calculate how many days it has taken to get to this point to see if I still have enough time.

I'm linking to Daphne's Harvest Monday! Now that the harvests are coming in very steadily, I'm going to try to document a little bit better.

Seedling care: too much or too little - water and fertilizer?

I hate to dwell on the negative, but there are some signs of trouble with some of the seedlings. A leaf on two of the cherokee purple seedlings have shriveled up and fallen off.  I can't tell what it is...if I'm over-watering or under-watering. It doesn't help that the signs of both are the same - wilting. I've been pretty careful about watering so I'm hoping watering is not the problem. I'm wondering if it might be the soil. I'm using miracle gro organic potting soil and I've been watering with "compost tea". I put compost tea in quotes because I'm not sure it is real compost tea - I just threw in a handful of compost, and a tablespoon of epsom salt and azomite in 5 gallon bucket of water and let it sit for a couple of days. The soil look like it gets good drainage - so I don't think it is root rot.  

Wilty leaf on cherokee purple

This is a mild version - another leaf continued to shrivel up and then fell off

One of the broccoli seedlings have completely shriveled up and died. A second one seems to be following suit. I hope the third one survives but if it doesn't, I am glad I planned ahead and started many back ups. 

As of today, the seedling on the left has died and the one of the top right is on its way

This one here is the minigold cherry seedlings - I think this one is under-watering. Looks like the leaves are getting dry from the stem and spreading outward. 

This looks like under-watering? The soil was completely dry - the picture is after I watered it.

The final issue is that some of the seedlings look like they are turning yellow. The potting soil says that it has enough nutrients for 4 months, so I think I am over-thinking the yellowing of the leaves. I'm going to try not to be so obsessive. 

Slight discoloration but I'm not too worried yet