Hello Hivers and Agricultural Mindset Community members! Week seven of my community vegetable garden has gone relatively well. We only had two days of bad weather. One of which was a windstorm so strong it uprooted a few of the plants.
But despite the few days of poor weather it's been hot and humid. The garden is growing well. I even got to plant three new types of plants.
First I'll start off with the romain and the swiss chard. Both have been regularly contributing to dinner salad all week.
Here's a bowl full of freshly harvested and washed leaves.
The romain has tight rosettes of leaves which gradually open up throughout the week. It is these outer leaves which have been harvested.
Rows of happy Romain
The swiss chard had gotten monstrous with huge leaves six inches wide.
They look fantastic in the garden. They aren't as productive as the romain. So I harvest the chard half as oftem. I prefer to let them get more established before I start harvesting them regularly. But the leaves I have harvested are thick and full flavoured.
The fancy red and green lettuce seedlings I transfered to the vegetable beds have finally started to develop and look sorta like actual lettuce. Still a month away before I can harvest any of it. But at least its starting.
The radishes dont look very captivating at the moment. They sorta resemble scraggly weeds.
On to the red onions! I've been following the other posts in this community about growing red onions. It's been helpful with my own onions which are growing quite nicely. I figure another two months before I start to harvest the bigger ones.
Next to the onions mr jalepeno is producing fruit. The peppers are now four inches long and ready to harvest in a few days. Those will be going in fajitas when they do get harvested. Along with the Coriander/cilantro.
Speaking of the cilantro, its flowering like crazy. I keep snipping the flower stalks off but in a day or so they're right back. I need to research how I should proceed if its ok to let them flower or if like basil I should be aggressive in curtailing any blooming. I've eaten the flower shoots they taste fine so I suppose theyre ok.
The basil has been used in a birthday dinner pasta i made for myself the other day. The basil is getting very bushy. I'm glad as my mom was complaining how it wasn't growing. Well, it's growing well now. It was one of the plants uprooted by the windstorm yesterday.
Last week I planted summer squash seedlings I had sprouted. They are doing well. In a few weeks I expect them to start flowering.
The zuccinni is still producing beautiful flowers although it appears that none of them have started producing any actual fruit from the fertilized flower ovum. The plants however, are doing fantastic and have very robust root systems so I am not worrying about them as I am sure fruiting is just around the corner.
I am tempted to take some of these gorgeous orangey yellow blossoms and bread and fry them as snacks. I might just yet!
Robust zuccinni growth.
The boston pickling cucumber has stolen the show from the zuccinni with it's cute yellow flowers. It's deciding to spread out across the grass and venture outside of the vegetable bed. It s however producing fruit. They are too tiny to get good pics of but maybe by next week I'll have dome.
Unfortunately the cabbage and broccoli was assaulted overnight by catepillars. I came out one morning and found one of each plants looking like swiss cheese. I investigated and captured ten catepillars. The broccoli and cabbage are recouparating.
And the assaulted broccoli
However the broccoli and cabbage as a whole are looking good. Still no flower heads on the broccoli but they have grown a lot in this hot and humid weather.
The beets are almost ready to harvest. They have roots several inches across which has surprised me. For the last month they didn't appear to be doing much, but I have been shown thats not true.
The cantaloupe that was holding n to dear life finally succumbed to o the constantly flooding rain. Its dead, gone kaput.
But the okra which was also much maligned by the monsoonal rain of last months tropical storms have finally gotten on their feet.
The bell peppers/capsicum are still puny, but they have developed a much richer green colour and gotten much bushier. Maybe this upcoming week sill be their time to shine.
We got our hands on three bean bushes. I carved a new planter bed next to the others and planted them. They will produce string beans once mature. So far they are happy in their new home. I will hence forth refer to them as Mr Bean.
We also tracked down and got a rare heirloom tomato from a private grower. A beefsteak variety called Solar Flare. The fruit has yellow streaks going up along its red sides.
The San Marzano Tomato has seven fruit on them. No signs of blossom end rot and is very healthy. It like all the other tomatoes have doubled in size over the last week.
A shot of the tomatoes. They are very dense and heavy.
The Better Boy which has been the runt of the tomatoes has caught up in size with the others. It too has several tomatoes on it. However, it will probably be a few more weeks before any are ready for harvest. I like to let them sit on the vine for a bit longer to maximize flavour.
And a picture of some of its fruit.
The cherry tomatoes are approaching 3.5 feet tall and are loaded with tomatoes. Maybe 50 or so. I have some red tomatoes that I'm leaving on the vine for a few more days to encourage full flavour. Nows the time I should fertilize with magnesium to enhance the taste. I'll be doing that at some point this upcoming week.
My dad is excited as he finally got his sunflower seeds in the mail and was hounding me to germinate them. He couldn't wait and insisted I plant them directly into the ground. They all sprouted but in the middle of the night something came along and ate 1/3 of the sprouts lobbing off their heads. There were no animal tracks so some sort of locust or similar must have capitalized on the sunflower seedlings tender cotyledons.
The massacred sunflower sprouts.
Some seedlings that survived unscathed.
I went ahead and planted some seeds in germinating pots for a second se bto plant later when they won't get taken advantage of by pests and are a little bigger.
This concludes this weeks update of the vegetable garden. I'm still on the prowl for new plants to add and may make another planting bed to fill in with more plants if I can find any I want to grow.
For once we have ideal growing conditions for the upcoming week. Sunny hot and humid all week! Should be a great week for the garden. Meanwhile I'll be busy installing storm drains, digging trenches and fixing broken pipes for some jobs I have lined up this week around town.
Wishing all Hive Gardner's, enthusiasts and farmers a lovely week.
Best,
-hidave
All pics by hidave