Sunday, July 27, 2008

Kitchen Garden Log

This is the 5th batch of beans. Not bad. Cukes are producing nicely as well. 4 this week - that's all we can keep up with. About 4 feet square of garden 'footprint' due to the wire tower. Cuke started from seed produced BEFORE the purchased plants.

This is a mixture of German Red (smaller heads), Inchelium (larger) and miscellaneous garlics that I pulled up around the yard. Some of those are from grocery store garlic that was planted years ago. I think that the German Red has the most flavor, but the heads are about 1/2 as large as the Inchelium.

Inchelium Red Garlic. This was very productive. Most is hanging in a dry basement room.

White Potato Onion = heirloom multiplier onion. I manage to save enough each year for a small crop. I would like to have a much larger crop but space is an issue. I've been saving starts and 'recycling' them into next years' onions for 6 years.

Saturday, July 26, 2008

Peaches: recovery from peach leaf curl.

Garden Gold - the least affected. No peaches but now the tree has a chance for next year.

Honey babe - I thought this one was dead. It's recovering nicely, also has a chance for next year. In fact, with a complete absence of peaches, there is potential for a bumber crop. IF I can address the leaf curl problem.

Kitchen Garden Progress Notes.

Ning's beans are climbing the string trellis. The volunteer that started itself as a "winter sow" produced a small bowl of beans.

The French Yellow and Roma bush beans have been producing for 2 weeks (not pictured). This is the former garlic bed - dug them up 2 weeks ago (also not pictured). Now it's an experiment - will romas and french yellow bush beans produce if seeds are started now?

Thai pepper. Strange, both are near fig cuttings that I had given up for dead.

Cayenne pepper. One is starting to turn yellow.

The cucumbers are starting to produce. We had one last week.

Fig progress notes.

Not bad, considering I was wondering if they were dead, earlier this year. I keep thinking about removing the petite negri due to mosaic, but it has the largest NUMBER of figs. They are small - vancouver and hardy chicago are both ahead of petite negri. Lattarula's figs are BARELY visible. Documenting now to see later if this translates into actual edible figs this fall.

Vancouver

Petite negri

Hardy Chicago

Lattarula

opuntia






Opuntia flowers. I was thinking about removing this cactus. It's difficult to weed around it. Especially when the weeds are thistles - double ouch! Frankly, the fruits are not great and take a lot of effort in slicing and peeling for minimal taste. The flowers only last one day, and most bloom over a period of a few days.

Still, when it does bloom, it's interesting. As the flowers age, the color changes dramatically. Interesting. Maybe I'll keep it.