Sunset Hills Update

We planted our Sunset Hills tomato plot in late April this year, earlier than any other tomatoes we planted. With the cold, wet spring we had, they’ve actually fared worse than their counterparts planted in May at Amy’s place and Iowa Ave. We’ve learned our lesson- planting too early, even if it’s after the traditional planting date (April 15th in our region), doesn’t necessarily get you a head start.

The good news is that our major harvests will be staggered- we’ll get a flush of ripening here when some of our other plants will be slowing down.

There are plenty of green tomatoes. I fertilized with a high-phosphorous organic fertilizer over the weekend, so we should see more production from that, too.

At the Market

The Cherokee Street International Farmers’ Market is in full swing!

Today we sold cucumbers, zucchini, jalapenos, tomatoes and cherry tomatoes, green beans, purple carrots, garlic, sprouts, cut flowers, and herbs.

The market runs every Friday from 4-7pm at 2647 Cherokee Street (in front of the stencil wall next to I Scream Cakes). Come see us next week!

Iowa Ave. Garden Update

Sunflowers grow here every year- thanks, Dave!

This is our third season working on the Iowa Ave. garden, and it’s going well. Originally designed with raised beds, we’ve since tilled up larger sections to get more planting space and try to deal with the ever-invasive grass.

Newly tilled this year is the back section, which now boasts a dozen healthy tomato plants, lots of peppers, and a variety of herbs.

Ripening tomatoes

Basil

Parsley and nasturtium

Popcorn is thriving in the tilled middle section of the garden.

Also in the middle section, three varieties of beans, including bolita and black beans.

We saved seeds from an unknown variety last year. Long and skinny with small striped beans, they’re great as green beans when young. We’re hoping they’ll be good for dried beans, too.

The teepee trellis sits in the southwest corner of the lot, which we dug out by hand. It’s planted with more pole beans.

Pole beans growing up the bamboo

The view from inside. Yes, there are beans all the way at the top, very much out of reach without a ladder!

Hops growing in the corner

The raised beds have eggplant, edamame, cucumbers, carrots, garlic, beets, flowers, and lots of plants going to seed. Soon we’ll be replanting for fall!

We have two new beds this year. This one was planted with ginger.

Horseradish in the other new bed, along with some mustard going to seed.

I do most of the harvesting on Fridays in preparation for the Cherokee Street International Farmers’ Market but we harvested some goodies today, too.

Lemon, Japanese, and pickling cucumbers

Tomato and bean harvest

I also started to dig up some of Dave’s hardneck garlic we’d transplanted into one of the beds earlier in the spring. Temperatures are predicted to be much lower tomorrow and Thursday, so we’ll be back at it some more!

July at Amy’s

It’s July and all the gardens are in full swing! Here’s what’s going on at Amy’s place:

We got up on the garage roof to take some aerial photos today. This is the west side of the large plot, which includes our spicy salad mix, cabbage and cauliflower, cucumbers, butternut squash, zucchini, sweet potatoes, banana squash, pumpkins, and melons.

The tomato/pepper plot to the east.

We’re trellising our tomatoes using the Florida weave system this year- our first time using this method. Using stakes every 2-3 plants, you wrap tomato twine around the plants as they grow. I like it so far, but you have to keep up with it! This photo was taken 2 weeks ago; you wouldn’t believe the growth since then!

Speaking of tomatoes, our Genoveses are starting to ripen. They usually grow singly, but it sure is fun when they grow in big bunches like this one!

Our jalapeno pepper plants are producing prolifically this year! We picked over 100 peppers last week for the market.

Bell peppers are getting there, too.

This is our wild gourd plant, propagated from seed from one of the dried gourds we found over the winter. Super excited for our namesake gourds!

This is Eric’s favorite flower, cleome. We like to interplant lots of flowers in our garden plots- not only are they beautiful and make great cut flowers for bouquets, but they attract beneficial pollinators, too.

Meanwhile, in the plot to the west, we’ve got several varieties of pumpkins growing- good for cooking and carving!

Also lots of melons! Mostly watermelons but also some cantaloupe.

Melon vines in foreground, followed by pumpkin, and banana squash taking over the background.

We’ve got two rows of zucchini, black beauty and a gray variety from Baker Creek. So far we’ve harvested ~25, with more maturing every day.

Our row of sweet potatoes is filling out nicely. We have more planted elsewhere, too.

And here’s the butternut squash row. We planted these a little later than our other squash rows, and there are already a few baby squash starting.

More updates to come!

First Garlic Harvest of 2013

We love growing garlic! It’s one of the easiest crops we grow, requiring very little input or upkeep. We use it in nearly everything we cook, and it stores well – no canning or dehydrating necessary!We harvested about half of our garlic on Sunday, about 120 heads. They’re curing in the basement on the shelving unit previously used for seedlings, with two fans directed at them to increase air flow. I’m looking forward to braiding them after they dry out a little!

We’d planted this garlic last October at Sunset Hills. Three rows are a softneck variety we bought from Local Harvest, the last row has some elephant garlic and some hardneck garlic from cloves we’d grown and saved.  We noticed that some of the softneck started to fall over (lodge), meaning it was time to harvest.

A head of softneck garlic is composed of a mosaic cloves, while hardneck garlic has a hard stem through the middle and a ring of cloves around it. This stem is where the scape comes from; softneck varieties don’t form scapes. Softneck varieties grow and mature more quickly and are said to store better than hardneck but have a milder flavor.