September 14, 2010: Granny's Little Helper

Granddaughter Alicyn came for a visit today. We were quite busy in the garden, as I wanted to take advantage of free child labor. Almost-two-year-olds are very good at carrying the harvest bucket through the garden, you know. She toted the cherry tomatoes and cucumbers, but balked at over sized peppers and squash.

Let's go to the garden!

Those are some big peppers!

One pepper fills the bowl, and weighs a whopping 13 ounces.

A good day's picking. Two zucchinis are not shown, as I jumped at the chance to give them away before I took the picture. Three more butternut squash gives me a total of 13 so far, and there are several more in the garden that are nearly ripe. The largest one of this bunch weighed just under 4-1/2 pounds. We've eaten two butternuts so far, and given two away. Mr. Granny does love the butternut squash, as long as I don't put it in pie!

The weather is lovely this week, with temperatures in the high seventies and low eighties. Yesterday I gave the garden shed a good cleaning. Pots and buckets were neatly stacked, plastic fencing was rolled up and stored for the winter, and I used the leaf blower to clean out dirt and cobwebs.

I pulled out the last of the bush beans today. I got another good harvest from them, and they were blossoming again, but we'll be leaving for Arizona before they have a chance to mature another crop. I'll most certainly be planting this variety again next year, and I'll plant it earlier. I've never grown a bush bean that was this prolific, and just didn't know when to quit setting new crops.

I only got a handful of pole beans. The Fortex vines are loaded with large pods that I'm going to dry for next year's seeds, so I'm only picking a few of the smaller, younger beans from them now.

September 13, 2010: Harvest Monday

Is it telling that I've nearly forgotten Harvest Monday two weeks in a row? I think I'm getting weary of harvesting. Maybe I'm just weary of preserving the harvest, and happy that the cooler weather is slowing down the growth of the vegetables. This past week was really cool, a couple of nights it dipped down into the forties, and for a day or two the temperatures couldn't quite reach 70. That's a good 15 degrees cooler than our normal mid September weather.

Monday's harvest included crisp lettuce, cucumbers, strawberries, beans and tomatoes. The squash in this photo are from last week. I'll leave them out on the patio to cure for a couple of weeks.

Thursday I harvested a big bunch of basil, and put it into a jar of water as an edible centerpiece on the patio table. This was also the day I was surprised to find a pound of Kennebec potatoes that I'd missed earlier. I found two sweet bell peppers that had been knocked off the branches by the wind. The last of the mid-summer carrots were pulled, not enough for a meal, but a good snack for the rabbit. There were also bush and pole beans, and cucumbers.

Saturday the Brandywine tomatoes kicked into high gear. These are still my very favorites, and will be grown again next year. The lone zucchini bush is still producing.

A nice bunch of lettuce was picked on Saturday. I also picked three pounds of pickling cucumbers, that went right into the jars without being photographed. More tomatoes, of course, but I did pull a couple more plants. The Brandywines are giving us all we want and more right now, and the Kellogg's Breakfast have also finally decided to ripen.

Week of September 6-September 12

86 oz. cucumbers
12 oz. lettuce
20 oz. bush beans
18 oz. pole beans
425 oz. tomatoes
4 oz. strawberries
8 oz. sweet peppers
4 oz. carrots
16 oz. potatoes
19 oz. zucchini
6 oz. basil

Total for week: 618 ounces = 38.6 pounds
Year to date: 697 pounds

Daphne's Dandelions is the host for Harvest Monday, where everyone can share links to their harvest for the week. Please visit her blog and leave a link, so we can enjoy your harvest photos!

September 12, 2010: See How She Grows!

It's time to update the progress of Leona, the Meyer Lemon!

For those of you who weren't here from her beginning, Leona is my potted dwarf Meyer lemon tree, named after my beloved mother-in-law, whose maiden name was Leona Meyer. No, I do not name all of my plants. This one is special, as she's my third lemon tree. The first two were planted, in the ground, in Arizona, and didn't survive our summers away from them. This one will be kept potted, and travel back and forth with us.

May 14, 2010: Our new baby, Leona, is 4-inches tall when she arrives by mail.

July 5, 2010: At 52 days of age, Leona had grown to 11-inches, but was showing signs of stress. Time for a dose of fertilizer!

July 18, 2010: Leona is showing her first flower buds at two months of age, and has grown another inch, to 12-inches tall.

July 31, 2010: The fertilizer has done its work well. Just a few days later, she is 14-1/2 inches tall and sporting sweet smelling blossoms. However, they failed to pollinate. That's probably a good thing, given her small size.

September 12, 2010: In just a few days, Leona will be four months old. She has grown a whopping 17 inches in that time, and is now 21-inches tall! She is determined to have three main stems at this time, and who am I to argue with her? I think she's beautiful.

September 11, 2010: In a Pickle

Three pounds of pickling cucumbers were picked this morning. My refrigerator is already stuffed with Refrigerator Dills, so I decided it was time to fill my last two empty quart jars and can some fresh pack dills.

What? Only one quart of pickles?

*Whimper*

Here's the other quart, along with the bottom of the jar, floating around in the canner. It's my first broken jar in the past two years of canning.

September 10, 2010: Catching Up. Again.

It was an all day job, but I got caught up. Well, I thought I got caught up, then I looked in the refrigerator.

Eight cups (four bags) of peeled and shredded zucchini, packaged for the freezer. It will go to my oldest daughter, who doesn't like peelings on her zukes. Three pounds of green beans, washed, snapped, blanched, drained and ready to be frozen before bagging. Eight pints of diced tomatoes in juice....a long process of peeling, coring, seeding, dicing and heating in tomato juice that was made earlier this morning from the small and cherry tomatoes. Three quarts and one pint of leftover tomato juice.

I heaved a sigh of relief, then I opened the refrigerator to get salad fixings out for dinner. DRAT! There, in the plastic box, were two more zucchini and another bag of green beans!

Before you ask, yes. I bought more jars.

September 9, 2010: Post # 500

Hmmm, you'd think I could think of something more exciting than zucchini for my 500th. post.

The giant zuke, in all her glory, may not be long for this world.

Powdery mildew has reared its ugly head.

I've never had a problem with leaf miners in the fall, but this year has not exactly been a normal year for gardening. It looks like the pet rabbit will be eating much of the chard.


Oops! The tomato toppled when the stake rotted off. I don't think there's any damage to the plant, it just needs to be tied back up. It's a dwarf plant, so not too heavy.

I do wish I'd taken pictures of the #1 Red Egg eggplant before I chopped it down and uprooted it.

Here is the (dead) bottom one foot of the plant. Just look at all those eggplants on it!


It had quite a root system, coming out of the drain hole in the pot, and anchoring the plant down into the ground.


Here are just a few of the fruits from it. The plant filled the entire garden cart, and was about 4-5' high and just as wide. It was sagging under the weight of so many little eggplants. They look like Christmas lights, don't they?


Here is its twin. This one has yet to show ripe fruit. I've cut back several of the branches, as it got so large, and the wind has also taken a toll on it this week.


Odd, but the fruit on this one is nothing like that on its twin. These are all perfectly round, and the others are all oval. I was going to pull this plant up, but maybe I'll let this ripen, and give it a taste test.

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There are some good things going on in the garden! For instance, this Red Acre cabbage that was seeded on March 15th.

Isn't it gorgeous? I almost pulled it out when it refused to grow, now I'm glad I didn't. It's been out there in the garden for nearly six months, and not a leaf has been harmed by insects, slugs or worms.


I can't say the same for the summer sown Gonzales cabbages. The leaves have a few holes, but the cabbages look fine. It's too bad only two of three survived the bird attacks.

I've never had a rosemary that blossomed! The flowers are such a pretty lavender, although they look white in the photo. I do hope this one survives the winter. It went to Arizona with us last year, but it was removed from its pot and planted in the garden last spring. My last two did winter kill, but they were much smaller than this one.


My fall planted carrots are looking pretty good. I wonder if they will be large enough to eat before we leave for Arizona. They only have 37 more days! Actually 36, as we'll be leaving in 37 days.

I was turning under some mulch in the old potato bed, when I got a surprise. Seems I'd missed a few potatoes!

It looks like there might be just enough for our dinner!

The weather has been cool and rainy this week, not conducive to working in the garden. Every time I get a good start, the clouds open up and I get rained out. Bad weather is nice for getting things done inside, though. I've been cleaning out kitchen cupboards, giving my kids a lot of things that have gone unused in years (their Grandma's fancy dishes, some of my fancy serving pieces). Other stuff was donated to Goodwill (a multitude of coffee mugs, some small appliances). I ended up freeing up just one cupboard, over the refrigerator, that now holds all the jars of pickles and relish from last year. They no longer reside in boxes under the bed!

September 9, 2010: WOOT! The BOC Arrives!

The WOOT! Bag of Crap finally arrived today, and it lived up to its name...a real bag of crap!

1 - Gold's Gym Fitness Tote
1 - iPod Nano Lanyard Headphones
1 - MI Numeric Keypad
1 - Barbie Scratch & Design
5 - Fact or Crap desk calendars

The tote might come in handy. The iPod lanyard only fits generation one iPods, and I don't own one. I have absolutely no use for the numeric keypad, as the numbers at the top of my laptop keyboard serve me just fine. I have no granddaughters at the Barbie age, but that can be saved or donated to toys for Tots. Five desk calendars that have less than four months to be used..... they can be reversed and re-glued for one-thousand-eight-hundred-twenty-five shopping list/scratch pad pages!

Annie and Otto weren't impressed. Otto just ignored the crap, and Annie rolled her eyes. Annie rolls her eyes at everything! Well, she doesn't roll her eyes at dinner or treats...you can probably tell that by looking at her.

All in all, the WOOT! BOC experience was fun and well worth the $3.21 it cost me. I'll definitely try for the next one that comes up.

September 6, 2010: Oh, No! It Can't Be Harvest Monday!

Where did the week go?  I don't have anything to blog about today!  I did harvest a few things this week, but I didn't photograph all of it.  Let me look on my camera, I must have something!

Wednesday I picked 365 oz. of lovely butternut squash, 64 oz. zucchini, 51 oz. sweet peppers, 128 oz. tomatoes, 3 oz. eggplant (did not count weight in total), 9 oz. strawberries, 5 oz. lettuce and 5 oz. pole beans.

Friday I harvested 55 oz. cucumbers, 58 oz. tomatoes, 16 oz. hot peppers, 8 oz. sweet peppers, 20 oz. zucchini and 5 oz. bush beans.

Saturday I picked, but didn't photograph, 22 oz. bush beans and 68 oz. tomatoes.

The week of Aug 30-Sept 5
27 oz. bush beans
5 oz. pole beans
55 oz. cucumbers
3 oz. eggplant
5 oz. lettuce
16 oz. hot peppers
59 oz. sweet peppers
365 oz. butternut squash
84 oz. zucchini
9 oz. strawberries
254 oz. tomatoes

Total for the week: 879 ounces = 55 pounds

Year to date: 658 pounds

I forgot to update the poundage on my sidebar last week.  That had me a bit confuzelled!

Daphne's Dandelions is the host for Harvest Monday, where everyone can share links to their harvest for the week. Please visit her blog and leave a link, so we can enjoy your harvest photos!

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I did get one day of work started out in the garden.  Here is the "before" photo.  

So far, there is no "after", as I've been too busy inside to finish the job I started.  I'm taking down the shade structures, as our temperatures are supposed to drop down into the 70s, so everything will need all the sun it can get.  I've pulled the bush beans (foreground), and the Juliet tomato that was growing on the fence.  That Juliet must have had 500 green tomatoes left on it, after I picked 4-1/4 pounds of ripe ones.  I just can't use them any more.  I can't even give them away!  I set the bag of tomatoes, along with two nice zucchinis, out by the mailbox, with a "free" sign.  Nobody took them, so now they are back on my counter.  Maybe I'll make a pot of soup with them tomorrow.  

The beans were not bearing very heavily, and every time Mr. Granny mows along the fence it throws grass clippings all over them, which makes them absolutely impossible to clean.  So out they went.  I have just enough pole beans to keep us happy, so I think all the bush beans will be pulled and composted this week.

I tried eating the first ripe eggplant, the variety called Red Egg, and I was not impressed.  I salted the slices and let them sit to (supposedly) remove the bitterness, wiped them off with a paper towel,brushed them with olive oil, salted and peppered, then grilled them.  They were bitter, and tasted awful!  It was a beautiful plant, full of pretty red fruits, but out it went!  I do wish I'd taken a picture of it before I pulled it out.  That's one eggplant down and one to go.  The second one is huge, but so far hasn't any ripe fruits on it.  I'll be moving the pots of hot peppers into their places, it gets so much more sun there.

Much of the weekend was spent with family visiting.  Saturday I made giant cinnamon rolls, so Sunday morning, Bryan, Amy, Alicia and Alicyn came for rolls and chilled cantaloupe.  The wind came up in the afternoon, and it was quite chilly by evening.  

Alicyn enjoys one of the last days of summer.