Mid-August vegetables

The chili plant and a close-up of the same. I started this one from seed (actually, all shown here are from seed), transferred it outside, and then saw it wither and seemingly die. However, after abandoning it for awhile in the pot, I noticed it had come back to life and transplanted it. It kept going. This plant has been through a lot because I also up-ended the pot it's in when the hose caught on it, and it survived being re-planted a second time from that as well:

Finally, I am seeing some female squash flowers. For quite awhile, I was only getting male flowers and that means no fruit! The third photo is a squash forming above a rhododendron bud. The squash plants have exceeded the space I allotted to them.

Basil around the base of a tomato plant. As always, a long time coming.

Mountain ash berries. The birds like them but I don't think there are many human applications.

Tomatoes: the joke isn't funny anymore

The tomatoes won't stop coming. Best of all, most of these are Brandywine. The yellow/orange ones are Old German, and the perfect-looking smaller red ones on top of the pile are one type of hybrid or another.

I was hoping to eat them all fresh, but it is getting a bit overwhelming.

It's a shame to can these because you lose the depth of taste. But, that'll probably be what I'll have to do with many of them. The shelf life on these is short compared to the hybrid ones, which will easily last a week unrefrigerated.

Brandywine tomatoes ripening by the day

My Brandywine tomatoes have started to ripen, which is a good thing because I think they're my favourite of the ones I've tried.

I don't really buy into that idea that locally- or self-grown vegetables always taste better than supermarket ones. My own lettuce does not taste much better than a supermarket one, nor do my green beans. The hybrid tomatoes I grow are about on-par with the quality sweet salad tomatoes you get in clamshells (i.e. Campari). Peas? Not much difference. Pumpkins? Not really.

But the heirloom tomatoes like Brandywine are a different story. They are quite fragile so you don't see them in the supermarkets very much. I did see them at an organic supermarket in Oakville for $5-6/lb, which is obviously pricey and especially so given the weight of them. They are often a bit scabby and have insect holes and folds here and there, but nothing that really gets in the way. The skin is fragile, so it tends to split as the tomato is growing and then heal, causing the scab.

The hybrid tomatoes have much tougher skins and are rarely insect-eaten. They look perfect. They taste fine but aren't all that special.

Anyway, here are the Brandywine tomatoes I picked this morning:

And here is the jungle they came from:

A rainy day; things that thrive in a rainy garden; plus Steven Wilson

It's another rainy day today, and it has been a rather cool spring so far.

Still, some garden life obviously enjoys it immensely, as you can see below.

The sorrel seems to love it:

And so do the chives:

The cedars I planted last year obviously like it and are in need of a prune. I did some top-heavy pruning in early spring so decided to give them a chance to recover from that before doing the rest:



The sage also seems fine. The brown bits are last year's sage. The new growth is already well underway:

And the thyme seems to like its spot nestled under the other cedars:

Yesterday, I bought Steven Wilson's "Insurgentes" CD. He is English, and it is perfect music for this weather that can only be made by someone from that rainy and grey little island:



But I'm not saying he has Morrissey's "Everyday Like Sunday" beat in this regard:



But there's chili in the oven, so it's all tolerable.

Pumpkin identity parade

Here's the latest pumpkin lineup. There are two more nearly ready to be picked and another still quite green but starting to turn orange.

These are pie pumpkins. The round ones weigh about 1.5kg each and the taller one is 1.8kg.

As you can see, the leaves are also falling.

Ripening self-seeded tomatoes

The self-seeded tomatoes that grew from the fallen tomatoes from last year are just starting to ripen.

I planted quite a few varieties last year and many of them failed due to disease (it was a cool and damp summer last year), so it's interesting to see what is sprouting up. It's all a mystery until they ripen.

The yellow ones are a yellow variety and not under-ripe, although I might have been fooled into picking the elongated ones (at top-left) too early. I think they are meant to be red!

First pumpkin of the year

Well, here is my first ripened pumpkin of the year. It is a pie pumpkin, about 1.5kg. Two more are about to ripen, at which point I'll have enough to make something of them.

(not much of a) Garden update: September 2009

Well, the tomatoes were doing well until they came down with the blight that so many other tomato growers have had problem with this year, due to the damp weather that makes it easy for the fungus to grow and the violent thunderstorms that help the spores spread through the air.

At the moment, there's about 1 good tomato for every 15. Up until a few weeks ago, everything looked very healthy and every tomato on the vine could be picked, so it came on quite suddenly.

I also found three carrots. I'd left my carrots for dead because I thought they'd all been eaten, but three of them made it. Makes me wonder: if the animals don't want them, why do I? But, they tasted OK.