Several folks have written me asking me for an update on the garden, so here goes:
There are plenty of tomato blossoms and about a half dozen green tomatoes, but the only red tomatoes as of today are the cherry tomatoes. We are trying to be patient…
There is plenty of mature basil and lots of younger plants. I am planning on tossing some basil leaves and some of those cherry tomatoes in olive oil tomorrow night for supper.
Knee high corn is the avarage, though I have a couple of plants that are thigh high. I edge-dressed all the rows with hot compost just less than a week ago, and the corn put on a nice growth spurt with all the rain that we have been having.
Also dressed with hot compost on that same day were the other plants that can take it without burning: pumpkins and gourd squash. They also put on a growth spurt and I have huge yellow flowers on the pumpkin vines and slightly smaller flowers on the squash vines.
I have green beans that are ready to eat on my bush bean plants, and I have runners three feet long on my runner bean plants. The black-eyed peas are doing so well that I am wishing that I had planted more.
Collards are about ready to have their outer leaves picked and the cilantro is looking about ready for the same. I went out and bought cilantro (cough, cough) last night before checking the garden for plants that were ready to give up a couple of leaves. I am kicking myself.
The true over-acheivers of this year’s garden are the durn potatoes. They are about three and a half feet tall and a couple of them have white flowers, which means that if I decided to later in the week, I can dig around the edges of the plants and get new potatoes. Potatoes are ripe and ready to dig when the plants droop over and turn brown. They had a cool, wet spring, which is good for growing potatoes down here.
We transplanted some watermelon plants when we found them at the vacant lot where we get out peanut shells. (Tom’s Peanut company dumps all of their shells in this big vacant lot.) Three of the four made it and we have foot-long vines off of two of the plants. We even have a little baby melon about the size of a grape- it’s covered with little spines like a fresh cucumber.
Okra is coming along- it is threatening to be an underachiever, along with my sweet potatoes, my onions and some of my peppers. On the other hand, we have some nice looking cayenne peppers. I am looking forward to drying those and grinding them for sprinkling on stuff.
I have a digital camera and I would post pictures…. but I don’t have anywhere to set up the machine that I have that has the card reader on it. SOON!