Friday, August 7, 2009

The Vegetable Garden on August 7

Finally! A tomato that is showing a color other than green. Black Sea Man, the first to set, the first to ripen.

And the parade of green tomatoes (not all of them), there's Giantesque above and Black Cherry below. The Black Cherries are starting to ripen but they are buried down deep in the foliage where I can't get a decent photo.



Blue Beech paste tomato above and Caspian Pink below. That one may win the ugliest tomato competition in my garden.



The tomato/tomatillo jungle as seen from either end of the bed.



Plaza Latina Giant tomatillo, still growing... And a purple tomatillo with a funny hat.

And here's a tomatillo leaf that's infested with spider mites. I applied a sulfur spray this morning to the tomatoes and tomatillos for tomato russet mites and spider mites, respectively.



The "Profumo di Genova" basil at the end of the tomato/tomatillo bed is happy. I've been snipping away at the plants for weeks now. And here comes the pantheon of tomato plant ailments, some of it is russet mites, and there seems to be something fungal, and I'm not sure what else - there's sooo many things that attack tomatoes.





Looking over the zucchini monsters and brassicas at the tomato/tomatillo bed. I was getting ready to plant out my Romanesco broccoli, when aaack!!! bunny attack - so I've got some new seeds started.



Across the main path from the zucchini monsters are the beans. The bush beans were pulled just after I took these photos, they were infested with spider mites. I planted out some "Rolande" bush filet beans in the same spot. Those seedlings are under row cover, as are the pole beans nearby because of bunny, bird, rat, ??? attacks.

There are bean plants growing under there...

The Red Florence Fennel umbels are a pretty copper color as they develop.

Spider mite damage on a bush bean leaf.

Pictured above is the pepper/eggplant patch. It has become quite a jungle.

"Piment Doux Long des Landes" is a sweet pepper. It's delicious either green or red.

The Chilhaucle Negro pepper is still developing.

The unpronounceable Bogyiszloi pepper is mildly hot and ripens red.

Survivors from last year: Aleppo pepper above and Aji Pineapple below.



The bunnies have been munching the leaves of the eggplant.

Rat-tail radishes are growing in the pepper/eggplant bed. Most of the flowers are pure white, but the ones above have a bit of pink in them. There's the developing seed pods below. The pods are eaten fresh or cooked or pickled.



The Magdalena Big Cheese squash plants are growing under protective cover at the end of the pepper bed.

And a nice surprise, the potted "Frederick" passion fruit is setting fruit this year.

10 comments:

  1. It looks great. I bet my buddy Susan of Slavic languages could tell you how to pronounce your pepper's name!

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  2. Wow, those are some of the most impressive tomatoes I have ever seen...and that giant tomatillo. Your garden really is amazing.

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  3. Stefaneener, It would be great if you could get the phonetic spelling!

    Thanks Mr. H! I hope they taste as good as they look.

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  4. Hurray for the ripening tomatoes! Once they start they seem to speed up and then you'll have a glut. The pests are a bit worrying, though. We find in a dry climate that nothing has a serious effect on the tomatoes - I hope I'm not tempting fate by saying that! Les landes peppers are great - we put them whole on the barbecue and they're delicious - enjoy them!

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  5. You seem to have a non-stop battle with the rabbits and goodness knows what else! Thank goodness for garden fleece. Your garden's looking fantastic!

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  6. I picked my first cherries today; 'Early Cherry' and 'Gold Nugget'. No diseases yet for whatever reason.

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  7. Chaiselongue, that is one glut that I'm looking forward to! I'm hoping that I beat the rats and bunnies to the first tomatoes.

    Jan, it has been a challenge.

    Chuck, the cherries seem to be the least prone to diseases in my garden also.

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  8. ahh, i wasnt sure what was eating my lower tomatoes- didnt know rabbits ate tomatoes...makes sense now as the "meadow mouse" i had been blaming it on couldnt have done that much damage...

    great blog Michelle, i esp. like the add-on that shows where all your visitors are from...

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  9. Hi Jeff, I'm not sure if bunnies eat tomatoes, the varmints in my garden seem to go for leaves, so far.... Rats, however, will happily munch on ripe tomatoes and do a great deal of damage. Squirrels also love tomatoes. Generally, I've found that if the tomatoes are munched at night it's rats, if they're munched during the day it's squirrels.

    It is fun to see where visitors come from - every continent except Antarctica so far.

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  10. I love the look of that first tomato, Great Sea Man. It is so pretty with the dark green going into the light green.

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