Wednesday, August 20, 2008

Garden Progress

My zucchini plant finally bloomed again today. It had shut down production because of the baseball bat sized fruit that grew while we were away on vacation. But now almost three weeks after we returned more female and male blossomed opened. I didn't get to hand pollinate this morning so I hope the bees did the job.
Here are two of my Brussels sprouts plants. The one was planted back in late May. The other is a seedling transplanted in July. The five plants from May have sprouts developing that look lovely. I can't wait until they are ready and it almost makes me anticipate that first frost.

Last night and today made me realize that first frost is close at hand. We had lows in the 40s last night and today was a crisp blue-sky day with a high of 70. Our average frost date is in late September, but our weather has been unseasonably cool this August. I hope I still have enough time for the tomatoes to ripen. Finally today I saw some signs of red on my unknown tomato plant. They are round slicing tomatoes like a Beefsteak, but not that size. Shoulders have darkened on my large heirloom, but I don't see any other signs of color.
My dill is starting to develop seeds. Maybe I'll collect the seeds for my spice collection.
The Swiss chard is doing very well. We need to eat more of it because it's falling over and shading my carrot sprouts. Some of it went into a Spinach, Potato, Leek Soup tonight (except we substituted kale and chard for the spinach). I'm not sure where I got the recipe so I don't want to post it here.
Lastly, you can see that the mystery plant also now known as wild cucumber is developing the spiny cucumbers. In fact, the vine is covering large sections of the hedge. All the white flowers in the second picture are the male flowers.

5 comments:

Marcia said...

Emily, you may have to pick your tomatoes green and let them ripen off the vine. Your brussels sprouts are looking really good.

Dan said...

The tomato that is just turning should not take much long to ripen. It really has been a poor year for tomatoes in my opinion, to much rain and not enough heat. I have also had the problem of having green fruit when frost starts, this year I am going to try to put some plastic over them in September to create a little greenhouse. Hopefully it will work!

Your brussels sprout plants are looking great. Have you used anything to keep the cabbage butterflies off? It doesn't look like there is any damage at all.

Emily said...

dan- I've just been diligent about looking for early signs of damage in the brussels sprouts around the center leaves and plucking off the cabbage caterpillars. So far so good!

Dan said...

Well you are certainly grooming them well! Brussels Spouts are so good. I used to only eat them with cheese sauce but have since stopped adding it to sprouts, broccoli & cauliflower. I am happy with them cooked just until the crunch is gone, with a little butter and S&P.

DP Nguyen said...

Hi Emily, Thanks for visiting my blog. The Brussels sprouts looks very good. I've never grown it, but it looks like a little like cabbage. The tomatoes look nice. My larger varieties take a little longer to ripen, and sometimes I let them ripen off the vine, so the birds won't get to them.