Garden Harvest - the haul so far...

If you have been reading this blog you already know that I garden as I talked about in  The Garden Marches On  and in the update of Garden Check In.  Well, I thought I would take a break from harvesting all of our garden produce to run the numbers on what we have picked so far and to talk about the major contenders in the garden produce competition.  Yes, my plants are pitted in a knock down drag out fight with one another to win my love through relentless production.  The winner gets my eternal love, devotion and an extra shot of fish emulsion the loser gets my ridicule and maybe not as much water at the end of the season.  You definitely want to be on the winning team in my garden.

Here is what the garden has produced so far:

Basil

Lots of globe basil which has a very rich smell and taste and stays compact if you clip it frequently.  So far I have harvested a pound of it and it is still growing strong.  It is trying to bolt, but clipping off the outermost stems will set it back into leaf production and encourage its compact growth.


May Harvest:  1 pound
Over-all Garden grade: A+ so far

Cilantro

A constant supply of bolting cilantro.  Just what is up with this cilantro?  I just get it to a size that in a couple of weeks it might have enough leaf stalks to use for a recipe and then I turn my back and WHAM!- look at all the pretty flowers.  This is not the first year I have had this problem, in fact it is the umpteenth year this same scenario has played itself out.  I do not have the cilantro gift. 

April Harvest: zero
May Harvest:  zero
Over-all Garden grade: F!  final grade  (okay, its bolting flowering self looks pretty cute, so at least it has that going for it)

Squash

The butternut squash we tried this last fall for the first time has made a wonderful addition to our lives again this spring.  The plants are looking a little bedraggled from the heat, but there are several squash on the vine and several already harvested.  Plus, not a sign of the dreaded squash vine borer yet!


May Harvest:  6.25 pounds - all in the last week
Over-all Garden grade: A+ so far

Okra

The plants are doing wonderful and have been producing fruit.  Unfortunately the plants are still suffering from 'dog'.  My two canine gardeners are enjoying almost every single pod these plants produce.  It is hilarious to watch them sniff out the pods and reach up to snap them off with their sharp middle teeth.  The plants are getting tall now and almost out of Westie range, but this morning I saw him trying to climb a plant to get to that sweet, sweet, okra ambrosia.  Raw okra as a dog delicacy.  Who knew?


May Harvest:  1/2 pound
Over-all Garden grade: A+ so far for the plants - Grow little plants.  Grow big and tall and out of doggie range soon so I can enjoy your bounty.

Onions

The onions were pitiful this year. In my second ceder bed the few that survived produced a half dozen less than golf ball sized bulbs.  My other onion bed did a little better, but this is nothing like the wonderful crop I got last year.  I have managed to make about three onion braids in all, but there is far less fruit and they are very small. 

April Harvest:   1 pound
May Harvest:   1.5  pounds
Over-all Garden grade: C-  (final grade - all have been harvested) 

Leeks

The leeks are going strong, but not at a harvest size yet except for a couple I pulled just to see how they were doing.  I am unfamiliar with leek habit, so I presume they will continue to grow, but who knows.  Perhaps they are pulling a fast one and just sitting there taking up water and fish emulsion, plotting to die before I get to harvest them.  


May Harvest:  1 pound
Over-all Garden grade: B+ so far

Peppers

The pepper plants have been producing a great crop of well formed fruit.  Both the banana pepper and the gypsy are going strong and are the best producers.  It looks as if they will continue to set fruit if the temperatures stay under 90.  The Corno de Torro produced quite a nice crop but is slow to set new fruit.  It may be more sensitive to the hotter temperatures.  The mild Tam jalapeno was slow to get started but it is setting a lot of fruit now.  So far so good.  

April Harvest:  1.5 pounds
May Harvest:  3 pounds (1.5 pounds this last week)
Over-all Garden grade:  A+ so far.

Cabbage

The cabbages did alright in all the beds they were in.  They suffered from predation of voracious worms but I was happy to find that hand picking these critters solved the problem and the cabbage heads formed with only a couple of holes in the outer leaves.  A couple of the plants had no holes and I was able to harvest perfect heads.  This being my first year with cabbage made this an exciting discovery for me.  I can grow cabbage!  Now I just have to come up with a whole bunch of cabbage recipes.  

April Harvest: 4 pounds
May Harvest:  3 pounds
Over-all Garden grade: A (final grade - all has been harvested)

 Beans

The bush bean plants have really been churning out their pods.  I have to pick nearly every day.  The plants are lush and not only did the original bed do well, the secondary bed I planted has started to produce as well.  Finally I got something right in the plant a second crop category.

 
April Harvest: 2.25 pounds
May Harvest:  6.25 pounds (3 pounds just this week)
Over-all Garden grade: A+

Cucumbers

The burpless hybrids are doing it again and producing copious amounts of fruit on disease impervious plants.  They are truly garden champions and if they weren't annuals I would be leaving them something in my will.  The pickle cucumbers have also produced but at a more demure pace.  They are also afflicted with the typical cucumber mildew plague which is already taking its toll.  Their fruit however is crisp and tasty so they have that going for them.  Together these plants are way over producing what we can personally eat and I have been giving away many, many pounds of these things to friends and family.


April Harvest: 1.5 pounds
May Harvest:  20.5 pounds (16.5 of that in the last week - eeek!)
Over-all Garden grade: A+ for the burpless hybrid, A- for the pickle type

Tomatoes

Okay, if I say this I run the risk of somehow jinxing everything, but this is quite possibly the best tomato situation I have ever had.  I read what I consider the Bible of gardening info - the original Rodale's Organic Gardening book.  I consult that old green book every year and live by its principles.  No pesticides or inorganic substances - lots and lots of compost, etc.  Well, the section on tomatoes features an article about this guy who planted his tomatoes in pure compost and got "50 tomatoes to the plant" yields.  That has always been the gold standard to me regarding tomato production.  Now, I am not talking about cherry or grape tomatoes, because I have already maxed out on productivity with those types.  What I was longing for was the ultimate large type tomato productivity.  The type of tomatoes that have 1/2 to 1 pound size fruits. 


So, this year I planted all 5 of my tomato plants in pure compost.  The plants did wonderfully in leaf and vine health, which is nothing unusual as far as I was concerned.  They always seem to look great, but the big tomatoes seldom produce much fruit.  I decided to do a fruit count to see how things were going before the fruit began to ripen.  I also wanted to see which of the different types of tomatoes I had planted were the most productive.  Here is what I found:


Top gun  - this tomato is new to me and I don't even know if it is determinate (sets all fruit at once) or indeterminate (sets fruit throughout the season) but it was touted as being good for hot humid conditions.  I counted its green fruit and was delighted to find 31 growing tomatoes.


BN444 "Bunny" - this hybrid was also touted for hot and humid conditions and was a determinate type which I have not used before.  Now Bunny had a major limb disaster after a hail storm, so I wasn't holding out much hope for her productivity, but low and behold she had 27 fruit which considering the 6 fruit she lost in the storm put her totals to 33.


Big Boy - this indeterminate type was causing me all sorts of worry due to loss of leaves which reminded me of late blight issues I had suffered with last year.  I am not sure what exactly is the trouble, but this plant has some sort of problem.  This has probably reduced its fruiting capacity, but I was amazed to find there were 41 fruit on it!


Creole 1: Leeky Creole -  This plant had some seriously huge fruit on it which was causing me anticipatory stress.  What was going to befall the luscious fruit before I could get it to harvest?  The fruit count on Leeky was a promising 32 huge tomatoes.


Creole 2: Corny Creole - This plant had the most lush growth which it turns out was hiding a treasure trove.  The first count I made I figured that I must have made a mistake and recounted several fruit.  So I counted again.  Then I counted a third time.  Something has gone very, very right for this plant because it had set 78 tomatoes.  78!  And the plant is healthy as can be!  And the fruit is very large!  I can't believe I have finally not just met but seriously surpassed my Rodale's Gardening dream.




But of course, set fruit does not equal ripe fruit and there are a whole host of problems getting from point A to point "on the table".  Not every one of those fruit on any of the plants made it to the eating stage.  Top gun has lost 3 due to some hole making creature.  Bunny lost her first fruit to who knows what and also four more to some hole making insect.  Big Boy was visited by some sort of nocturnal 'eat half a tomato' creature that gnawed into a couple of fruit and some of the fruit just up and died.  Both the creoles have lost about six fruit between them for various reasons.   In all there have probably been a dozen to two dozen lost fruit from all the tomatoes so far.  This is hardly a drop in the bucket to what is waiting on the vines.  Here are the totals from all plants so far:


April Harvest: 2 pounds
May Harvest: 28 pounds (21 pounds of that in the last week - eeek! eek! eeeeeek!  - I estimate we have triple that at least on the vines and ripening in the next two weeks)
Over-all Garden grade: A++++++



What does one do with 28 pounds of tomatoes?  Well, we eat as much as we can and give away a whole bunch to friends and family.  Too bad this kind of crop can't go on all year.  Come July there will likely be no tomatoes at all, sniff.

So, that's all for the harvest so far, but stay tuned.  Fig season is about to start, the tomatoes are all going to ripen in the next couple of weeks and the okra will finally outgrow the dogs.