Mid Point Review

I know tomorrow is the first day of Summer officially, but if you have a garden, it's the mid-way point of the growing season.  And, it's also that time of the year when the garden needs the most attention.  On this Fathers' day, I took inventory of where my garden is and what I needed to do to continue or improve the garden.
As we are heading into the heat of the summer here in Baltimore, I decided I needed to have a back up system for watering - a hose.  I usually hand water with rain water I store in rainbarrels but inevitably, I get too busy at times and may put off the watering given the 100 degree heat we have here.  So I set up a hose and a sprinkler as shown below.

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Notice the state of the art equipment I am using.  This is a Rain King rotary sprinkler commonly found in the 60's and 70's.  But it does a great job and it was dirt cheap to buy at an antique store.
And it works!
Here is my patch of 14 Pepper plants.  All looking healthy at this time.  These represent two successive plantings.  Don't need many of them but they are easy to freeze and great tasting to bring out in the Winter.

I also have 8 Cucumber plants that are just starting to grow up the trellises I made from various items I have scrapped over the years.  I another month or so, the trellises will be a flush of green.  Just need to keep training them up and they will do the bulk of the work on their own.

Next I have about 60 bean plants in various states of growth.  I have planted them successively for the last 5 weeks which should insure a constant crop over the next couple months.  

Then finally, I have my 14 Tomato plants of various types.  The summer heat will bring with it rapid growth over the next month or so.  As you can see from the one picture, there are buds galore on some of the various early type tomatoes.

So, all in all, and compared to my neighbors and what I am hearing from various gardeners I know, my garden looks productive.  I'll have to keep an eye on it of course and do the things that will keep the momentum going, but that's all in the nature of having a garden.  Till next time, Happy and productive gardening everyone.

Monticello and the Heritage Harvest Festival

My wife and I attended the Festival this past weekend.  We drove down Friday afternoon through the insane traffic that is Washington DC.  We were able to get in to beautiful Charlottesville Virginia, check in to our hotel and then go to the pedestrian mall in the downtown area.  We had been here before but this time was quite different.  It was the home opener for the Univ. of Virginia against Notre Dame.  Guess what color shirt I was wearing - that's right!  Bright green like I was from Notre Dame.  I laid low once I figured that out.
It was a mob scene although it did not seem intense.  I love this little mall as it is quite nice with the blend of eateries and it's quirky stores that populate the mall.  You can eat outside or inside the various restaurants.  There was a nice mix of the students youth from Virginia and the older folks - mostly alumni.  It has an ampitheater on the one end and we listened to the Skip Castro Band for awhile.  We left there just before the UVA pep rally was to start in order to avoid the crush of the people there.
We woke up on Saturday and made our way to Monticello.  When we arrived, it was lightly raining and the mountaintop was covered with clouds and fog.  I had signed up for a Soil Renaissance workshop and a class about winter gardening.  We made our way to the various vendors and perused and purchased a few items from them.  We took in a tomato tasting table from Seed Savers Exchange.  I must say, the chocolate cherry tomato's were delicious.  Only issue I had was that they did not have seed packs for many of the varieties being presented.  Come to find out, they were testing them so they may come available in the future.  I will have to keep an eye out for their catalog to see if any made the cut to packets.
Let me begin the description of what I(we) took in at the festival.  I will begin the same way I tell people to start a garden - with the soil.  Soil renaissance is a group of loosely held organizations that have as their primary goal the education of today's farmer about soil and how to sustain it.  It really was quite interesting to hear the various speakers - one from Soil renaissance, a local farmer, an extension representative from Va., the Monticello chief gardener and a professor from Va. Tech.  All had very interesting points of view and experiences.  While I was sitting listening to each speaker, I was ticking off what I do in my garden as each subject came up.  It was quite gratifying to know that my practices were in line with most of the speakers.  One place I did not mesh with one of the speakers was with the use of herbicides on their crops.  I completely understand that they have a livelihood to protect unlike me.  I garden for the joy of it and not for direct income.  There is a vast difference.
Interestingly, one of the organizations that Soil Renaissance does interact with is the Rodale institute in Kutztown Pa., not far from the Baltimore area. They are pioneers of the organic method and they date back to the early 1950's. According to the SR people, they participate regularly within the SR movement.  Rodale does classes and has tours during the year.  I will have to get up there to see the Institute.  I believe they have over 300 acres of test fields.  They are very cutting edge and I have been reading their website and picking up techniques and such for more than a few years.  If you get the chance and are in the area, it may well be worth the time to go there.
Well, that's all for now.  I will be writing more about this visit but there is so much to tell I feel it needs to be broken down over the next week or so.  I also have pictures which I will also share in the very near future.   If you have any question about this or any other topic, please feel free to leave a comment.  Until next time, Happy Gardening!
  

Harvest time!!!

Yes, it's that time in the garden.  You know - the time when you go out to the garden with a little bit of wonderment of what all your diligent work in the garden will reward you with.  Last night, due to other activities, I wasn't able to get to the garden until around 8:15 pm.   I knew I had vegetables to pick and after inspection, I decided to water them down and then pick them in the morning when they would be their freshest.  So, with headlamp on to see what I was doing, I watered the garden down.  I know my neighbors, if they were looking, must have had a chuckle.
But, this morning I woke up with anticipation of what I had spied last night.  I picked a bunch of the various cherry tomatoes I planted along with a beautiful (in my eyes at least) Mortgage Lifter tomato. It's a Heirloom tomato with quite a story behind it.  It dates back to the 1930's when a gentleman by the name of MC Byles, with no experience of plant breeding, bred 4 different varieties of the largest tomatoes he could find at the time and developed this plant.  Legend and his recorded story has it that he sold enough of these plants to pay off the mortgage on his house.  Good for him and thanks for such a wonderful tomato I say.
So, here's the first Mortgage Lifter of the season.

I find that the first fruits from this plant are a little smaller than they should be.  I will let the next ones sit on the vine a little longer to see if maybe I was a little over eager to pick this one.  They can get close to 2 lbs each and are consistent producers throughout the season.

I also picked a bunch of the various cherry tomatoes I planted this year.  

This is about the 3rd set of these I picked so far this year.  I have eaten some and given away more to various people I know.  Last year I was asked repeatedly if I had them when in fact, I didn't grow any.  Never knew people loved these so much so I guess I will have to grow them due to the demand. 

Lastly, I also picked two cucumbers.  These come from seeds I bought in Italy years ago.  

These are some of the best cucumbers I have tasted.  I'm going to have to do a little investigation as I need to either save the seed if possible or get new seeds.  I ran an experiment with these two cukes. The one on the top hung from a trellis and the one on the bottom was laying in a melon basket as seen below.

Not sure if this will affect the taste or the amount of seeds in the cuke.  I will find out when we cut it open in the next day or so.  My guess is that there will be more meat to the basket cuke.  We shall see!  

So there you have it.  We are in the throes of quite literally "reaping what we have sowed".  I hope your garden is producing in excess so you too can share with others in your life.  If you have anything to discuss or need some help, please leave a comment and I will be glad to share my experience with you.  Until then, happy gardening everyone!