Heavy Harvest

The New Farmer came over today to help. We had a very heavy harvest. Everyone is eating cucumber every day and they are wonderful. Lots of people benefit too since there is more than we can eat. I take food to work, church and last week I took cucumbers and tomatoes when I helped cook dinner at the Fire House Shelter.
These are older pictures since the camera has been borrowed for the weekend. The New Farmer will take some pictures for this weekend which I can add later.
Not everything is a success. We have had a second planting of squash and then they all collapsed with stem borers. For the first time I am going to use a organic spray. I am trying the BT. This is a bacteria that kills worms when they eat it. The squash borer you cannot see so I feel I have not another option. In the past I have just picked off bugs and eggs or used resistant plants or finally I have just on some occasions tried to plant enough for me and my unwelcome guests.
Just in the last week I have 12.937 KG to report today and added to the last weight we now have 142.580 KG for the year which is 315 lbs.

Onions and Figs

This has been a busy week for the Farmer. While the weather has been hot and the cucumbers continue to be prolific there is some variety this week. Above are some onions that were started from sets and now have full bulbs. With a few dry and sunny days the Farmer's Daughter and the New Farmer have processed them and they are now in the basement. Might be good to make some French Onion soup but the weather is too hot for that. 
Finally a fig has made it inside. First there was one or two and now they will start to ripen quickly. Usually we have about a month of heavy production and then a few a day till late in the fall
This plate is very Mediterranean looking with tomatoes, eggplant and peppers. The plants still have lots of blooms and young fruit.
Finally I don't know what this is. It was on the cucumber plant but larger and yellow and kind of a melon flavor.
These are some yellow pears.  The Farmer visited the Jones Valley Urban Farm this week to check out the heirloom tomatoes that they have.

16.757 KG of produce to report this week added to the 112.886KG which is a total of 129.643KG

Mellon Bursting; Flavor

The New Farmer has posted but there has been some exciting developments.
One is that we have harvested the second melon. You can see that it is an attractive melon and weighed nearly 1.5KG all on its own.
There has been a lot of rain and I went out to check yesterday after the last storm and you can see what has happened to this melon. It had burst. I think only a few minutes before. I brought it on in and cleaned it up, cut off the places where it broke and cut it up. It was great last night and with supper tonight.
Also we have some tomatoes. This is an example of this year's version of the Roma. I have had problems with all the water with fruit splitting and having soft spots. Also this is a nice onion.. If we have a few sunny days we will harvest the onions and cure them.  

102.063 KG was the last total and now there is 10.823KG this week  which gives a total of 112.886KG which is 250lbs for those metric impaired

Last of beets, hot weather veggies yellow tomato's & Peppers.

We pulled up the last of the beets for the year.

They were so good. Both the beets and beet greens. We have several kinds of tomatos, yellow pear shape, red cherry and the big ones. All are super good. Several kinds of peppers and we are not sure which one is the hot one. There are so many cucumbers we can't find enough people to give to. I like the long English ones best. I can eat several a day. We have bugs in the Squash so we are working hard to smash them and today I did not find a lot. The rest are looking good, we will have sweet potato's soon. Lots of flowers that are pretty. I harvested 3534 mg this morning. 3126 of them were cucumbers. We have more green beans planted and the pole beans are just starting to bloom. There are melons also. All for today, see you next time

100 KG!!! Yellow Tomatoes

These beautiful yellow pear tomatoes are as tasty as they are attractive. The Farmer's Daughter is working at an organic farm this summer and has brought home some Black Cherry (Really very Dark Purple) tomatoes that are wonderful as well. These heirloom varieties are getting very popular and people are becoming to appreciate what a tomato tastes like and that they can have lots of different appearances.
I have been growing this Magda variety for the last several years. It is a Middle Eastern Squash and seems nicely suited to the heat. Well as tasty as it is pretty I am starting to see some of these are the Farmer's Market so others are discovering this type. One thing that I have discovered that may be why it is not seen in grocery stores is that it is so delicate. You touch it and the skin will mar. This does not harm the taste or cause it to go bad but people want the food to be pretty too.

This is the year of peppers. Every day there is a whole variety to pick from. I did a terrible job with the labels so some look alike but one has a very high heat quotient.  I need to figure out which one that is to steer it's produce the New Farmer.

Who said you need to have lettuce? You can have a great salad with cucumbers and they are still producing well. I have some starting up a trellis.
Finally these are the bush bean.  We ill get several more batches but they will be done soon to be replaced by two sets of pole beans that are growing so much that they over top the trellis. If you keep them picked they could produce for 6 weeks or more.

I have 8.887 Kg to add this week which I add to the 93.176 KG I had to bring 102.063 KG which is 225 LB and half way to the 400KG total.

Melon !!!! Tomatoes and Pepper

One of the things that is a little difficult to grow are melons.  The vines have a blossom every few inches but surprisingly few of the flowers set and make a melon. I am not sure what we can do to improve on this. This is a French melon that is smaller than the ones we get here. The Farmer's Wife and Daughter picked this while I was away but they did take a picture.
This year we have tomatoes in June but just barely. Last year they were several weeks earlier. I have two types of Cherry Tomatoes, one is about the size of a ping pong ball and one is much smaller. I will have golden pear tomatoes in the week and I have some larger ones not yet ripe.
We had roasted vegetables tonight and so I got some fresh onions and lots of herbs for the pan. Surprisingly there was some left.
Here are some cucumbers and peppers.

Here are some more peppers. Clearly this is the best batch of peppers I will have grown this year with large vigorous plants. None of them are very hot but they add a nice crunch.
11.881 KG to add to the total brings us 93.176KG.  This is getting very close to the half way point of 100 KG. I might get that later this week