All.
Summer.
Long.
It has been hot and humid and dark and rainy and horrible. My poor, poor garden! It did so well at first.
My tomatoes are literally rotting on the vines - they get big and green and pretty, then start to turn red and almost every one rots off overnight. If they don't rot, blight starts setting in. It's happening to every single garden around here, so we're all picking our tomatoes green and bringing them inside to ripen on windowsills. I thought I'd show you yesterday's garden basket.
There are two cucumbers down in there, too, but I forgot to pull them up where they could be seen. The zucchini plant is producing like mad; no problems with it! I only got one in this basket but I usually have two or three. And my 'winter' squash, like butternut and the white scallop you see here, is just starting to come in and seems fine. It's mostly the tomatoes - the cherry tomatoes are doing the best but about a third of them go bad. They ripen so fast it's hard to keep up, though. You can see some spots on a few tomatoes where they were already starting to turn bad - and one, lone, healthy, almost ripe red one. Oh well. They taste just as garden-fresh when they ripen in a sunny kitchen!
That basket was soooo heavy when I was done! And tomorrow's will be just as full, but it's starting to turn cold at night so I don't think the garden has much longer. Grow, little squashes! Grow fast!
Yummie, that is a basket full with goodies. I would like to grow my own veggies too, but I lack the space (and energy to be honest). But maybe you have a good tip for something easy to begin with?
ReplyDelete(The only thing I have done is growing my own alfalfa, can't get it easier then that! :) )
I also lack the space and energy to garden....plus I hate yardwork and kill anything that grows. lol
ReplyDeleteIf you want your tomatoes to ripen faster put them in a paper bag. It also prevents any of those fruit flies type bugs to get to them too. It has been the same here-- lots of really cold spells-- tomatoes love heat. I won't have enough this year to freeze for stewed tomatoes for spaghetti sauce. I picked up some peaches a few days ago-- I plan on making homemade peach jam-- I made raspberry jam from the berries in my garden -- which is really easy to make. I have so many frozen still in my freezer.
ReplyDeleteWhat a great haul Tama. We had one tomato plant last year and just as they started to turn red, the deer ate all of them.
ReplyDeleteLinda