End of June Catchup

 OOOPS! I've done some work, but I've not been posting. Here's a catchup to the state of the art:

I've built a new area at the end of my driveway for vegetables. It turns out to be the sunniest place in the whole yard! I moved the Vespa last year, but fully built out the spot and caged it (mostly) in this year. It's still open at the end towards the house. So far this year, there has been one deer foray into it - the deer walked all the way in and cropped some of the tomatoes in pots on the left, and peppers in the blue Greenstalk at the far end. The barriers are pvc pipe just stuck together, with netting positioned via zip ties. I pounded rebar into the ground and pushed the pvc pipes over it, to hold it up and in place. Kinda frail, but not terrible. At the end, facing the street, I had some metal trellises - again, not very sturdy - and pushed them into the driveway. Outside the end I put my citrus trees in pots - the deer do not like them, and they have thorns.

Three towers: eggplants in green closest, cherry tomatoes in the middle, peppers in blue at the end.
There are three big tomato pots on the left, and a shishito pepper in the green bag. Photo 6/25/26

I put four tomato plants into the ground inside half the big netting cage. They are going gangbusters. Also one basil plant, just inside the door.

The four are Gumdrop, Ace 55, Roma,
and some "better boy" type from Home Depot.
The Gumdrop, a cherry tomato, is pushing the 
top of the netting already.

 I plan to plant zucchini and melons in the other half, maybe today. I delayed hoping to avoid the worst of the squash vine borer bloom.

I also have my decorative pots in the back. They get at least a half day of sun.

A deer came by and ate the tops of my glads 
(tall spikes in mid-left) after I watered this morning!

 I also planted a strawberry tower this spring. I've gotten three ripe strawberries from it. One I picked at ate immediately. Two I picked, set down for a minute, and Bixby ate them.

I had netting on it at first. 
I can put it back if squirrels become a problem.

 My favorite part of gardening: being done!

My companions are always there!

 

Getting the Crops In

Strawberries!
I had the cover from something else.
My squirrels and birds like to uproot the plants.

Yesterday was a productive day for gardening. I planted my bare-root strawberries in the pink Greenstalk (along with two different strawberry plants from the hardware store). The plants, from Park Seed, arrived a week or two ago and I had plopped them in the fridge until yesterday. So they are used to cold-ish (38 degrees in the fridge).

23 slots, tomatoes on the right, peppers on the left
Peppers for a GS tower, most tomatoes for ground or pots

I started tomatoes and peppers in my Aerogarden. I believe my hydroponics gives seeds a week or two advantage. I also started some pak choi in the large Harvest AG, maybe for keeping inside, maybe for going out. All these new plants should be fine until I get back from France.

 

My brave little Golden Harvest!

I also had plopped some old AG tomato seed pods into the AG slim. They are from 2022 - I didn't expect much. But at least two plants have sprouted, one each of an Heirloom Cherry and a Golden Harvest. I would put these in a Greenstalk.

More plans, but it's raining right now, so thinking of inside things. 

I will not buy any more seeds this year…

 I will not buy any more seeds this year. I will NOT buy any more seeds this year. I will not buy ANY MORE seeds this year. I WILL NOT buy any more seeds this year. 

Still Gardening

Last night, I dipped into the freezer and 
got my second-to-last bag of my tomatoes,
and my last peppers, to make a sauce.

It's February, and that means there is a stack of seed catalogs on my coffee table four inches high. I just placed an order for seeds and supplies, due in next week. At the end of last season, I bought some planters on sale, and I've been musing about where they go (in my limited sun) and how to protect them from deer (my excellent deer fence mostly protects the shady part - the bulk of - my yard).

In the mean time, I am growing inside. I did a round of lettuce that all got eaten the week before I went on vacation. I'm participating in a group challenge for indoor growing - my online group selected specific vegetables and varieties, and we all planted them at the same time. It's not a competition, we're comparing notes and tips. I've got cherry tomatoes, shishito peppers, and nasturtiums going, besides a basil plant on the window sill. I've got the usual house plants inside, including three citrus under a strong grow light - two limes and a lemon, I think, though since there is little to no fruit its hard to be sure. Plant tending is a great putter while listening to a book or podcast.

Tomatoes and peppers in the basement

Closeup of the pepper plants blooming away
I do some fertilizing them using an old electric toothbrush

My kitchen window, just before going away
Tomato, basil, thyme, pepper in window
nasturtium in tabletop unit
I also like having the bright lights in the kitchen

 

Vegetable Bounty

Salad tomatoes, paste tomatoes, cucumbers,
mini cucumbers, peppers, cherry tomatoes

 There's a pretty good harvest going in some of the vegetables. I don't pick every day - I plan for when I can spend time cooking or otherwise preserving the harvest. The peppers were coming on strong when I got home from vacation on August 1. The cherry tomatoes were also full steam. The cucumbers were just starting.

Banana peppers, long green peppers, eggplants, basil,
shishito peppers

I grew two types of main crop tomatoes - early girl, and money maker. I think the ones I'm getting are money maker. They are big salad-sized, not huge slicers. They are still going strong, after a month. 

 I grew San Marzano roma-types. That plant started turning yellow from the bottom up, but I still got more than one sauce crop out of it. 

The bulk of the cherry tomatoes are gumdrop. They are bigger and darker than most cherry tomatoes. The plant in a pot is not doing well, but the one in the ground has become a jungle all by itself. It spread to all four trellis supports, and then up through the roof of the crop cage to cover it!  The fruits from the potted one are much smaller. I'm guessing the constrained roots can't support the rampant growth.

 I'm growing several varieties of sweet peppers in the green stalk. Mostly I cook with them, though I have some small bells that I have eaten as snacks. I bought a single shisito pepper plant at farmer's market and it has been prolific from June on. I fry the peppers in olive oil whole and just chomp them while holding onto the stem. Tasty!

The little eggplants persist. Every week or so I get a handful and cook them up in the oven or air fryer. I've mostly been eating them as a single dish, but this week I added the cooked eggplant to a ground lamb dish I had made, and it was not entirely unlike moussaka, after I added creme fraiche for creaminess. 

Roasted eggplant and fried shisito peppers

I have two kinds of cucumbers, pickle sized and full sized. I mostly eat the small ones as finger food, just munching on them. I grated up most of a full sized one to added to yogurt and garlic to make tzatziki sauce. Yum! I'm getting a half dozen little ones a week, which is more than I want to eat. But they are good snacks.

I seem to have failed to take a picture of my single zucchini. I have several very healthy plants, no sign of vine borers or other blights, but there are only male blossoms! I spotted one embryonic female about to bloom, and came back 48 hours later to find it a foot long and past optimal picking. I keep searching under the foliage but see no other fruits happening.

 My countertops are full of vegetables ready to be processed. I visited a friend and was amused to find she was the same, with tomatoes finishing ripening and peppers needing to be frozen.

I'm popping cherry tomatoes into bags and right into the freezer, whole and raw. I hear they will still make good sauce, which makes sense. The peppers I either cut and freeze raw, or saute with onions and freeze that way. I'm eating some form of pepper-and-tomato saute, some form of spaghetti, a couple of times a week. The eggplants get eaten right away, and I don't know if its possible to preserve cucumbers, so some of those go to waste.

Early August: It's a Jungle Out There!

The pot farm

 I hired a neighborhood urchin to water my plants in pots while I was gone. The pots need watering every day it doesn't rain - but it rained a lot! I had told the kid to help himself to vegetables, but there were still plenty for me. Things will start coming fast!

I have one tower of peppers (none hot). They are prolific!

I have one tower of eggplants, giant plants, the little fruits are coming in.

The middle tower had pak choi, but I harvested all of it and need to put something in - maybe flowers? Visit to Home Depot in my future. 

Harvest

Harvest cleaned up and ready to cook

Tomatoes on the left growing through the roof
Zucchini and cucumbers on the right; 
blooming but no fruit yet.

 

Herbs Doing Well

 I've harvested vast quantities of herbs over the past couple of days. From outside in the Greenstalk, I've had cilantro, parsley, and dill. I also have marjoram and fennel, but I'm not sure what to do with them.

Herbs in the top tier of middle tower (pre-harvest).
Eggplants in bottom 3 tiers of blue, peppers in bottom 3 of green

It's all experiments, both growing and harvests. I made a dish that used a cup of cilantro, and then the rest of it I chopped in the mini-food processor with a small amount of olive oil to bind it, and froze into just two ice cubes. I'm always startled how much the volume goes down. The dill, I stripped off the stems with my fingers and then stuffed it all into a small 4 ounce plastic container and froze it as is. I'm pretty sure I'll end up having to use all of it at once.

From left: mint, basil, thyme, Thai basil, parsley
I started these in December, and really chopped them back today
Hydroponic, no dirt, and no bugs!
I found this shady windowsill benefits from supplemental lights

The Thai basil (really great flavor!) I treated like the cilantro, except I used a neutral oil instead of olive oil. Again, two ice cubes. The mint, I mostly discarded after using some in a drink last night. It's ok flavor, but I don't use mint a lot and it grows fast a vigorously. The window-sill basil I decided to handle differently, since I already have basil/olive oil cubes from last year. I'm trying to dry it in my air fryer (which has a "dehydrate" setting). Then I'll crumble it into a jar. It's not done drying yet, but again, the volume decrease is amazing!