Pulled up the Tomatoes

Finally finding enough time to work in the garden this weekend, I decided to pull up the tomatoes. They were really looking bad, and Abbey said the smaller ones were not tasting very good anymore. So now I have a ton of green ones, which will be slowly turning red over the next few weeks (hopefully).

Here is my largest cauliflower, 

Broccoli heads are getting bigger!

And, as always Gideon is helping.

Photolog 11/24/2008

Gideon helped me make rounds in the garden today!

Well, you can tell the cold nights have been hitting my tomatoes and okra - they look all brown and crunchy. I am waiting for the last of the tomatoes to turn red and I am letting one of the okra pods go to seed for the spring batch. Just from a single pod there will be way more okra seeds than I could plant in one season, so if anyone is interested...

Broccoli is putting out some heads!

Cilantro likes cooler weather, and it's really hard not to pick and eat at it. I'll give it another week!

Photolog 10/31/2008: Halloween

Well, the weather has been pretty close to perfect for my fall garden. The days have been warm but not too warm, and the nights have been cold but not too cold. In this turbulent political season my veggies are growing great, my garden quietly existing in peace as Joe The Plumber talks about the impending annihilation of Israel. I am sooo happy to not have a TV, but somehow I still hear about this crap!

More importantly, it was Shady's birthday on Friday and we had all kinds of fun carving out a pumpkin and playing with her new toy.

Happy Birthday Shady!

Shady's new toy is a Dora the Explorer fishing pole, and let's just say that Gideon thinks it's his birthday too.

Here's a pic of Gideon chasing a lure in the backyard.

fall garden is underway

Fall tomatoes! Now which is which?

Side garden

This pic is an update on the poor guy in the last post... looking better!

The 4X12 raised beds

Corn hasn't sprouted yet

The okra is loving the heat

Gideon helped with the Saturday morning honey-do's

I decided to give the blog a face-lift to celebrate my newly planted fall garden. I am growing three different kinds of Tomatoes: Better Boy, Cherry, and a grape-tomato variety called Juliet. I planted two of each, and then forgot which was which so we won't know until they start to set fruit (how fun!). I have a variety of Okra called Cajun Delight which is busily sending out new leaves every couple of days. It looks like they have been planted too close (okra gets really tall and wide) but Abbey's grandpa (from henceforth known as Pa Pa) showed me a way to do this by cutting off a stem every time you harvest an okra (you know when to stop when you can't reach the tops of the plants anymore). I also devoted half of the other raised bed to a super-sweet corn variety called Gotta Have It, and after tasting some of what Pa Pa grew I must agree. I think I will have around 50 or so ears of corn in about seventy days, so we will have to have a corn-roast party at our house and celebrate before the raccoons do. Party details will be closer to harvest-time. In my side-garden I have a black-eyed pea variety called Early Contender which has done well despite the abuse I have put them though last week (see the previous post). Also in the side garden I have planted some Cucumbers called Sweetest Yet, and they should be hanging all over my energy meters and time warner cable boxes soon. 

In a month or so I have been thinking about planting Snow Peas and Spinach in the second half of the raised bed with the corn. I have also been thinking to interplant some elephant garlic cloves that Pa Pa gave me. Garlic is a pest and disease-free plant, and it can help keep bugs out of the garden if you juice it up and spray it (I hear it also keeps away vampires). Garlic is different from most veggies in that it grows during the winter. You plant it in the fall, and harvest in the spring.

I also must recommend a blog that I ran across by accident. Skippy's Vegetable Garden can be found in the continuously updating column on the right. She puts up new posts almost daily and takes really great pictures. I tried copying her picture-posting style for this post, we will see if it works.

Stay tuned!