What Worked This Growing Season

Brandywine Tomatoe Plant

Martha Stewart's Brandywine Tomatoes were definitely the perk of growing our own vegetables this year. Each plant produced several large tomatoes over the growing season from July thru early September.

Burpee Roma Tomatoes produced a good amount of tomatoes. Some of the seeds in the package gave us some weird shaped tomatoes but otherwise we were pretty happy with them. They gave out all their fruit by the end of August. I have one plant in a backyard planter that sat in the shade that's giving out it's first fruit of the year.

Honey Delight Tomatoes

Honey Delight Hybrid Tomatoes (Burpee) grew bunches of tart yellow tomatoes. They made an easy replacement for tomatillos in salsa recipes.

Kohlrabi (Behnke's) was a surprising treat once they were ready. We were really happy with this vegetable as a replacement for cucumber early in the growing season.

Garden Babies Butterhead was a delight to watch grow. They grew into small heads of lettuce with light flavor and delicate leaves.

The small eggplants were neat in terms of serving a whole little eggplant in a dish. They came out tasty in an indian curry with rice and roasted in a honey/soy/miso sauce over noodles. My one gripe is that they take forever to grow.

Herbs were definitely winners this year. They all gave awesome flavor:

• Cilantro, Calypso
• Sage, Common
• Parsley, Titan
• Basil, Siam Queen
• Large Leaf Basil (Behnke's)
• Dill, Fernleaf
• Lovage (Behnke's)

Calendula (top) Nasturtium (Bottom)

The Edible Flowers were a nice mix in the garden and did attract the right insects. Although I think I would limit my nasturtiums to one plant next year. Their flavor is a bit too much and you do get a good amount of foliage/flowers from one plant:

• Calendula, Flashback Mix (Organic)
• Nasturtium, Dwarf Cherry Rose
• Edible Marigold, Lemon Gem

The Biggest Losers this Season:

Zucchini

Burpee Zucchinis were a big disappointment this year. I think I would try a vining type instead of a bush type next time. This type of Zucchini says it's for a small garden and grows one squash at a time. Seemed like way too much leaves to meager fruit.

Burpee Broccoli Raab grew into flowers way too fast before developing any thickness to their buds. This was the most disappointing vegetable of the season. I love the taste of Broccoli Raab but wouldn't plant this type again.

I don't think I'd plant the Ferry Morse Spinach again. The leaves came out way too small and we didn't really end up eating any of it.

Flea Beetles and a Swallowtail Caterpillar

In the garden this week, I came across two types of bad insects. One is the swallowtail caterpillar that will one day become a butterfly so I left him alone to eat this dill plant. The other is a horde of black flea beetles that poked a bunch of holes in all of my eggplants (five). I'm not really sure what to do at this point; I've used diatomaceous earth & neem oil spray. Maybe the eggplants are way too damaged. I tried plucking the bugs off today and am applying neem oil to the surrounding plants (sweet potato in particular). Hoping at least one of my eggplants survives.

Today I planted a Best Boy Tomato and a Beefsteak tomato in containers using layers of straw and gravel for drainage at the bottom. The soil is a mix of compost and perlite. I used the Neptune Fish Emulsion to feed my plants today (maybe the nasturtium leaves were turning yellow from not giving them enough nitrogen).

Swallowtail Caterpillar on a Dill plant

Flea Beetles and/or Aphids have been eating my eggplant seedlings.

Best Boy & Beefsteak tomatoes are planted in pots with straw, compost, perlite and gravel.

Garden Pics

Kohlrabi are about 2 to 3 inches wide now

Roma Tomato has leaves that I think are being eaten by insects

I think this is fennel (front) and in the back a zucchini decided to start growing finally

Swiss Chard (red version in front and yellow in back)

Collard Greens were being eaten but now seem to be recovering.

Chamomile seedling starting out. I have three growing currently.

Salad Bowl Lettuce (left) Butterhead Lettuce (center) and Broccoli Raab (right)

Cucumber plant at the base of the teepee

A cilantro plant that began from seed and behind it is a shallot plant

The sad looking plant in the back is a sweet potato and the plants in the front right are eggplants.

Danielle's Jalapeno plant growing happy new leaves

The New Mexico Chile plant is doing fine

Nasturtium plants are growing. I have about five of them.

Bay (left) and Lemon Verbena (right)

 The weather has been nice and we're expecting beautiful weather all this week (highs in the 70s and 80s).

Tomatoes are finally planted

Yesterday and today I planted tomatoes, eggplants, peppers and cucumbers. Efrain and I enjoyed our first radish yesterday.

I planted Bell Peppers next to the Collard Greens. The pepper seedlings were outgrowing their plastic egg containers. I had planted their seeds March 11. I had two extra for the seedling exchange tomorrow.

Cucumber (planted seed April 7 & late April) and bell peppers planted near the cucumber teepee

Honey Yellow tomatoes, Brandywine tomatoes with Anaheim and Jalapeno pepper. To the planting hole for tomatoes and cucumbers I added about a tbsp of Gypsum which adds Calcium but should not alter PH. My measurements for PH are everywhere at this point. Originally I measured a neutral 7. Now, I get some 6.5 then I get a 5.5 and once a 5. I must be hitting chunks of things when I take the test. At this point I'm leaving it alone and let the worms work it out.

Eggplants planted after application of an Espoma Soil Acidifier.The PH readings here range between 5.8 and 7 after the application. I hope the PH will resolve itself in time for when the sweet potatoes arrive.

I decided to give up some of my swiss chard and collard green space to plant more chile and bell peppers.

PH READINGS - ROW1(Eggplants & Sweet Potatoes): 5.8 thru 7 ROW2(Tomatoes & Cucumbers): 5 thru 7 ROW3 (Zuchini & Roma): 6.5 thru 7 ROW4(Collard Greens & Herbs): 6.5 thru 7

Fertilizer

Yesterday I fed my seedlings some Gro-Tone Espoma Fish Protein "For Organic Gardening". We'll see how they react to it. I also purchased some Organic Neptune's fish fertilizer liquid. They both say organic but the Neptune one lists OMRI.

My eggplants (lower half) and peppers (upper half) are coming up now; they took two days longer than the tomatoes.