Wednesday, August 19, 2009

Late Blight

It looks as though I have or should I say my tomatoes have "late blight" . Probably from all of the cool weather and rain we have had. I vainly tried to remove what I could and start anew, but the referenced article above does not give me hope. There are still a ton of tomaotes which are usable if they don't have the spots etc.
On a lighter note>..
Carrots are beautiful and should be ready to pick.
I have planted lettuces, rocket, but the neighbors cats find this bed compfy, and so I find them sleeping in it. I may try to start seeds inside in a more controlled climate.
The honey crisp apple tree is doing very poorly. leaves are brown and diseased looking. so sad
the other green able tree (golden something ) is doing much better despite the deer eating at its lower branches.
still need to put the blueberry bush in. thought I would wait for cooler weather.

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Julie & Julia Soundtrack Player

Fresh Tomatoe Sauce

My first attempt at making a fresh tomato sauce was somewhat successful. I need to figure out how to thicken up the sauce. It was very watery.
I used AVM recipe for fresh sauce.
I must have used 12-15 tomatoes

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Summer 2009

Well here it is, August and I am finally starting to blog about my garden. I want to use this space to record the goings on in the garden so next year I can be a better gardener!
so recap of the last three months:

Vegetable garden:
We have three raised beds,
Bed 1: gets most light, newest best soil, tomatoes (too many) bell peppers, 1 eggplant
Bed 2: pumpkins, cukes, carrots, beans
Bed 3: Gets least light broccoli, bibb lettuce, swiss chard.

Late Feb- early March I started from seed. some I got from the Phili Flower show.( Money Garden packet with broccoli, carrots, tomatoes cucumber and lettuce)
brocolli
peppers
tomatoes
pumpkins
cucumbers
inherited two tomato plants from John J ( reisentraube, and golden?)

From seed in early May
carrots
lettuce
swiss chard
green beans

Mothers day brought two appletrees
golden
honeycrisp


Mid june
I planted 3 eggplants (bed 3-2, bed 1-1) and cayene pepper from the market
I started some peppers and more cucumbers the first plants overtaken by bossy pumpkin.

Brocolli, big and beautiful produced small trees not bunches but lots of them. Chickens LOVE the blue leaves
swiss chard is delicious and red, yellow and orange.

Pumpkins took over the garden again this year and contracted some sort of blight and had to be removed did get four or five regular pumpkins and 6 beautiful bumpy squash.

Mid July- i put in a zucchini and squash plant in the herb garden.

The side of the herb garden closest to the porch gets the least amount of light. maybe try cilantro there next year.

So here it is the beginning of August, and the garden is wild
I planted too many tomato plants and they over grew the eggplants and peppers.
I took out the broccoli and pumpkins and picked a peck of tomatoes. Planted late cucumbers and peppers.
looking forward to fall gardening.
lettuces (red, bibb etc) and arugula
swiss chard, cabbages.

Herb garden: new additions this year,
Purple sage,
thai basil,
moved and replaced thyme, parsley

Deer have eaten alot of the apple tree at the bottom of the garden.
Andrew planted grape vines down there along the fence and have grown very slowly.
I also have blueberry bush, but cant' decide where to put it.

Flowers
Perenials
I planted another Lupin in the lily garden hoping it get established but it still is not doing well.