Hurricane Harvest Irene!

Well, I harvested all of my watermelons, yellow squash, Chimayo peppers and scallions ahead of the hurricane on Saturday morning. I was worried I might lose everything to the wind. This morning, I woke up to an almost sunny day and thought, gee all that fuss was about nothing!
First I tasted a pepper. I took a tiny nibble of the tip and thought, Hmm, that wasn't hot at all. I took a bigger bite and it tasted like a sweet pepper. Then, I took a bigger bite towards the top and was like, Hmm, actually... this is hot. Ha! Still, it was a nice slow burn and I liked it! I'll have to think of something to cook them in.

I knew that the small watermelons weren't quite ripe when I harvested them, but what can you do when a hurricane is bearing down on you. I ate the red parts of this mini guy and it was tasty!
The yellow squash are just a little old, but I skinned one, sliced it very thinly and fried them up to put on a home-made pizza. Mmmmm!! I also stuffed the squash blossom with goat cheese and fried it up in an egg. Mmmm!

I don't know what to do with all those scallions!

Chili Peppers! 2011 Watermelon!

As always, I've been a bit lax with the garden and the blogging by this point in the summer. But, there are successes despite me! I have a nicely sized watermelon for the first time since 2008! This is really an accomplishment. I sure hope it tastes good! You can see that the leaves are yellowing and spotted, so the plant is definitely on its way out. My other watermelon plant looked about the same and has 2 smaller watermelons growing. =) They'll be nice little softball sized treats, I hope.And for the first time ever, I have peppers! These are Chimayo chili peppers, a variety from New Mexico. I'm excited to try making something spicy with them! They are extremely prolific, despite all of my neglect.
My yellow squash is putting out fruit, even without hand pollination. I'm going to eat this baby. You better believe it.
Zucchini, too! Though, it's not doing quite as well as the yellow squash, I think. I really have to watch the curcubits better. I should probably fertilize them more than I do. That's probably part of why the watermelon vines are dying sooner than I'd like.
Tasty fun times await!!

Big June Update: Early Red Tomatoes!

Well, May came and went without taking any pictures in the garden, but I did get up there enough to plant these gorgeous nasturtiums (got them at the Union Sq. green market) and do enough watering to keep things alive. Last Sunday I even got around to weeding, pulling up my spent pea plants and planting some new things in their place.

And here are the earliest red tomatoes I've ever had!! They're not quite ripe, as I like them really dark red, soft and fragrant. But they're almost there! Now if only the weekend would be hot and sunny...
You can see how much the tomato plants have grown. The other 2 are just as big as this one. I set up the automatic watering system on Sunday (June 5th, I know... too late like last year! but at least I had been watering a little). This plant had looked like it was going to die. I was worried that these red tomatoes would be the only ones I'd get because I'd underwatered. But, it looks like the watering system did it's job and I can't even tell it was ever in mortal danger! On the left is one of the white potatoes I planted in April. Seems to be doing well, though I honestly don't know much about growing potatoes so we'll just have to see when it's time to harvest.
Here are the blue potatoes. They suffered a bit down below because I didn't add soil when I should have, but I did add soil on Sunday. So, hopefully I'll have more potatoes than I planted =)
I got around to planting this watermelon seedling on Sunday, which had been growing on my windowsill for a while. I had some trouble with my watermelon seeds getting killed by fungus. On Sunday, I direct sowed a few more seeds in the hope that I can get a couple more plants growing. This one seems to be doing decently, though. I'm sure it's happy to be planted properly in the sunshine and heat we've been having.
I think these are the black beauty zucchini seeds I planted on Sunday.
I think these are the yellow prolific straightneck squash I planted on Sunday. I always mix them up with the zucchini because they look so similar.
This year, I tried something new and sowed some pepper seeds. I had some trouble getting them to start, but eventually got 2 plants, which I planted out on Sunday. One is a chimayo hot pepper plant from seed someone friendly sent me back in 2008. One is a King of the North red bell pepper I bought from seed savers exchange. I also mixed them up and don't know which one this is, but it has one tiny pepper forming! I hope it grows fast, as it was a bit stunted indoors.
Here is a beet plant next to my other pepper plant. We'll see which one is sweet and which is spicy when they grow up =)
This might look like weeds to you, but it's actually asparagus! When I received the asparagus plants in the mail, they looked like a bag of dried roots. The directions say to plant, water and wait. I waited for quite a while and they finally came up out of the soil. They actually looked just the way asparagus looks when you get it at the store, but they were much smaller and thinner. When first planting asparagus, I have read that you should let the plants grow without cutting them to eat for the first 2 seasons. This allows them to "fern out" the way they have here and gather energy to grow more next year. When you buy asparagus at the store, the "spear" is what has grown here and turned into feathery leaves. Who knew?!
On Memorial Day weekend, I went home to Long Island to help my parents in their garden. For my efforts, I got a pot of well established and delicious chinese chives (gao choi). They came out of a garden bed that we reclaimed from an awful amount of ivy. You see how the bottoms of the plants look whitish-purple? Where the plants start growing green is where I had cut them on May 29th!! They've grown a ton in just 13 days. Very strong plants. Chinese people have a saying that goes "strong like gao choi." I can see why.
Those scallions I planted at the end of April also grew like gangbusters. I should chop them and cook something.
Now an update on a few well established plants. These are my Northsky and Chippewa blueberry plants. As large and lush as they have grown, they remain a disappointment and I realize now that it's because there are no bees to pollinate them and they are not self-pollinating. Every year, they get covered in flowers and I have so much hope!! But then my hope is dashed when the flowers are gone and no blueberries form. What to do? Hand pollinate? Or just pull them up and start over with something else? Start a bee hive? Wah.
This Briteblue blueberry plant is much smaller but at least it produces something for me to eat!
These Loch Ness blackberries suffered last week from my lack of watering, but there are still some on the plant. They should ripen up nicely.
This Arapaho blackberry plant did not suffer as badly and is covered in these pretty little fruits. It'll be a while yet before they are large and black and yummy! My summit and anne raspberry plants are growing nice and lush as well, but I probably won't have fruit from them this year. Next year should be plenty!
This lilac I planted in April is doing very nicely =)
Here's a shot of the garden as a whole. Doesn't look as nice from far away! But, things are growing. In the near corner, you can also see a cold frame my father made me this spring. =)
That's a wrap for now!

Planting Time!

It's April 24th and these Stupice tomato plants have been sitting on my windowsill, growing faithfully for 2 months. Started back when there were feet of snow on the ground, here they are! They already have flowers in full bloom! Don't they look ready for the outdoors? =) I'm hoping for the earliest tomatoes I've ever had. Stupice has been my favorite and most successful variety since 2007, when I had 1 plant gifted by a generous gardener in the West Village. That year, it had been covered in healthy tomatoes all slightly larger than a normal cherry tomato. They were delicious, hardly ever split from a rainstorm and never had blossom end rot or pests. I'm hoping for more of the same!

I put each plant in its own bucket, where it will grow out the rest of the season. As usual, I buried the plants as deep down as I could get them without covering the healthiest leaves and flowers. In the planting hole, I put a healthy amount of crushed egg shells and bone meal. (It got dark out in the middle of the afternoon.)
Then the sun came out again! Doesn't this tomato look so happy?
I decided to try something new this year. Scallion seeds didn't grow for me, but I remembered that the scallions in the supermarket almost always have little roots at the ends. I bought a bunch at the corner market, chopped the tops for some food and decided to plant these.
Here they are, planted with some tiny chive and chinese chive seedlings. We'll see if the seedlings make it.
Also new in the garden are 2 Josee reblooming lilac plants, which are supposed to grow only 4-6 feet high. I'm hoping for some nice screening of my neighbor's windows and fragrant flowers. I bought a big bag of bark mulch at Saifee Hardware and have used some in this pot.
Here's my other lilac in the closer pot. The other pot is something my neighbor planted and left on my roof. Not sure what it is.
Finally, here are squash and zucchini seedlings I started. Hopefully they'll stay alive until the peas are done and I have space to plant them.

Everyone's Got Issues

Seems like everyone has issues these days, including my plants, though I suppose 80% of this blog discusses my plant issues. Something's always going wrong! At least it's still fun and seeing new problems forces me to learn more about gardening in order to try and come up with solutions.

Today, I went up on the roof and the first thing I saw was the shriveled and rotten looking tomatoes on this plant! They look fearsome!

And it's not blossem end rot because it didn't start from the bottoms and in fact, the other tomatoes on the plant are fine.
When I tried picking the branch off the plant, the larger rotten tomato smashed to the ground with a disgusting splat. This came off and upon inspection, a round little hole... Must be some kind of insect! WAH! I bet it's still eating up my tomato from the insides. I guess I'll just hope this doesn't spread. I don't have that many tomatoes!
Another issue I found was that the zucchini and squash I saw last week have shriveled up and died! The yellow squash is a total goner. This zucchini is larger but shriveled. I don't think it will ever look right. My suspicion is inadequate pollination, once again. It was a problem with the watermelons and these related cucurbitae also require large amounts of pollen to grow fruit properly.
After some googling, I have learned that these flowers can be hand-pollinated in the mornings. This yellow squash is probably a goner, as the flower is already dried up and I don't think there are any pollinators around. It's probably not too late for the little one next to it, though. Another issue could be that the plant is stressed from the heat, inadequate nutrients, or other issues and the female flowers are not opening up. I will try to get on the roof early every morning to check the status of the flowers and hand-pollinate if things look right and sexytime. Another alternative I may try later is planting lots of bee-attracting flowers (though that may not help if the bees are too lazy to visit the cucurbits and if the flowers themselves are not opening because they are stressed). I could also start a bee hive, though that seems a little scary!! I wish my neighbor had a bee hive I didn't have to take care of... =) (sorry about the blurry pic. I was standing awkwardly and couldn't see what I was shooting at.)
This blueberry plant is still making tasty berries! The only issue here is not enough berries!

Weedy July, Ground Cherries!

Life didn't used to be so busy =) Now, it's a regular thing to go a month without visiting my garden! Sad! But, thank goodness for automatic watering systems. From far away, the garden looks green and growing!
Close up, though, it's clear that a LOT of the green is grassy weeds. But, the good thing is that most other things are growing despite the weeds, including all of my berry plants! Not a single one died from the drought last time! Here, you can barely make out the basil among the tomatoes and the grass. Grass weeds are the bane of my garden's existence...
But, this tomato plant managed to grow mostly weed free. Pale tomatoes... I wonder what color they'll end up? The options are pink, red and blackish. Maybe these will be pink! They look too pale to be the red ones.
But this plant is also with pale tomatoes! 9 of them, to be exact =)
Strange things have also been growing in the garden. Apparently after a few years of runners and seeds or whatever goes on with the strawberries, they start going feral. Tiny strawberries in the middle of July! I didn't eat this one, but maybe I'll try it tomorrow.
Blueberries in July, too! I did eat this slightly damaged blueberry, the first I've ever tasted from my garden. And let me tell you, it was good...
More to come! I wonder if they are supposed to take this long to ripen.
And remember that strange volunteer I posted about last? Well, it looks like a little tomatillo plant! How odd! Still no idea where it came from. But, some of the husks fell down, meaning their fruit are ripe.
Cool!
And inside, a yellow fruit! Kind of like a tomato or cherry. When I came down to google, I decided it might be a ground cherry. One has to be careful with nightshade plants as some are poisonous. I ate this one though, and it was good and I'm not dead yet. Not even vomiting.
I'll won't eat them all at once though, because I'm a little nervous...
Also growing well, my squash and zucchini! The watermelons didn't make it and their pots are full of grass weeds, but these look like they're doing fine.
My first yellow straightneck squash. I think the timing is just about perfect as the seed packets usually say 45 days.
My first zucchini ever! I hope it grows nicely =) I want some yellow and green stir fry.
Gardening is good for the soul. I didn't finish cleaning out all the weeds today. Didn't want to get too tired in the heat. I'll do the other half tomorrow and maybe figure out what to plant in the several empty buckets I have at the moment.