Journal of a Gardener
Norman Wallace, Kentucky Master Gardener
See the tomatoes we got! - July 28
Harvest time with grandkids - July 28
Hannah picking peas and Patty getting green beans - July 28
Bumble bee on yellow squash blossom - July 3
Mixed greens, Swiss chard, arugula, summer squash - July 3
Slow start in June
Kentucky Blue pole beans and purple hull peas in early July
Mixed greens at rinsing table - end of June
August 13-18, 2008
August 18
We got the first lima beans today. Patty cooked some for supper and froze a pint. She also canned seven pints of okra and tomatoes. We got okra, tomatoes, cucumbers and peppers. At our amazement, there was a very good harvest of beans. I cut the first 9 butternut squashes, choosing those that were darker, larger and had stems showing color change to brown instead of green. I also pruned the ends of some of the vines. I am assuming that these two actions will allow the plants to better feed the remaining squashes. There are 35 or 40 more to harvest. The nine that I cut weighed 25 pounds averaging 2 ¾ pounds.
August 17
Day off from garden
August 16
In the afternoon we got okra, tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers.
August 15
We had a good harvest this morning. I pulled all of the remaining onions (about 50). We brought some home and placed them in a net bag to dry. The greener ones I hung on an improvised rack in the barn. I pulled up the zucchini, yellow and spaghetti squash vines and moved them by wheel barrow to a burn pile fifty yards away in the hopes that I took most of the squash bugs with the vines. The afternoon was cool and dry with a high cloud cover, and so I went back and chopped out some weeds, used the tiller where there was open space and sowed about 100-150 square feet in turnip greens. Now I wait for rain to bring germination. Patty canned seven pints of tomatoes while I was back at the garden.
August 14
No visit to garden today
August 13
We brought home the first three cantaloupes today. The last rain was two weeks ago tonight. The garden is showing the stress, but clay holds moisture well and the foliage is full, so the ground is fully shaded. Somehow the okra, tomatoes, peppers, beans and winter squash keep on producing.
August 6-12, 2008
August 12
No visit to the garden today. Everything is slowed down by the lack of water. We have had no rain since July 30-31.
August 11
We had one more cutting of arugula and I dropped some off at Denise’s with some tomatoes and cucumbers. I stopped at Culpepper Place and found lots of tomatoes in heavy foliage. There I saw three cucumbers and took some pictures.
August 10
We did not visit the garden today, but ate lunch at Culpepper Place where a resident had sliced some tomatoes and cucumbers from the raised beds and was sharing them with the tables around her.
August 9
We had a good harvest this morning and Patty canned 10 pints of tomatoes in the afternoon. Patty micro-waved a small spaghetti squash. She cut it in half, removed the seeds, placed the halves open face down in a small amount of water and heated for several minutes. A probe with a fork indicated readiness. We added a little butter. The texture was crisp and the taste was sweet. We took an evening walk in our new neighborhood and found a good gardener a quarter mile away who had an honors veggie stand. We got a small watermelon and a cantaloupe for a dollar each and had a good visit with the grower of this vacant lot garden.
August 8
No visit to the garden today.
August 7
Because the squash bugs are taking out the spaghetti squash vines, I cut the whole crop this morning. Some of the squashes are small and immature. I left as much stem as I could. We got a total of about 25 fruits from the three hills with 8 or 9 plants. I pulled up the vines and pilled them in the middle to avoid scattering the bugs.
August 6
No visit to the garden today.