Vegetable Medley

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times ... for vegetables this year. As previously reported, the 2013 onions were the best ever. But, sorry to report, the 2013 tomatoes are the worst ever. I blame it on the weather - never the gardener.

Four tomato varieties were planted this year. The 'improved' Supersweet 100 cherry tomatoes were mostly unimproved. They attracted my usual 'blights and mites.' The only hope for these tomatoes is to plant early, grow quickly, and harvest as much as you can before the blights and mites set in. You gotta admit, the little buggers are sweet.

Fourth Of July tomato seeds were sent as a mistake by Burpee. They did not produce by the 4th, but at the end of July, along with the other tomato varieties. The smallish Black Velvet tomatoes were small and extremely rare as hardly any fruit set. The flavor was not too impressive. Finally, the Beefy Boy tomatoes could have used a few trips to the gym this year. Still, for the small sizes harvested, all tasted better than the supermarket varieties.

I haven't grown carrots in a long time due to the failed attempts forcing them into heavy clay soil. The soil is improved in the vegetable garden, so why not try again? And why not try Tendersnax? The best carrot ever pulled out of my garden had warts on it. Possible carrot problems include maggots, rust flies, nematodes, nothing causing warts. I see some discussion on heavy soil that might produce this condition and in extreme cases, additional legs. Some warts were cleaned off for the photo shoot.

First time growing zucchini for me this year produced these baseball bats. Sliced up, seasoned with oil, garlic, oregano, salt, and grilled. That took care of one fourth of one. Black Beauty is the name, and I find it is an heirloom variety. I see pickled zucchini in my future.

Mama don't let your cucumbers grow up … when you are on vacation. You get overstuffed pregnant blimps like this. Picklebush pickling cukes on bush plants were grown. The skins make them not so good for eating raw like regular cucumbers. And not being experienced with them and their coloring, I had a difficult time determining when they were ready for picking.

One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer

One tomato, one pepper, one cuke. Singing the gardener's blues. With all the work in the garden thus far, that's all I got. It's enough to drive you to drinkin.

One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer came to mind when picking the first tomato and first pepper this morning to join the one cucumber - before the temperature climbs above 100 (38° C) again for the sixth time this summer. I was not looking for the weather to grill my vegetables while still on the vine.

It's the middle of summer and there's not much to show yet. Thankfully we don't have the drought conditions here that a good part of the country has. Rainfall in our area is way down for the year, but there have been a few quick storms that left a little in their wake.

The surprise cucumber was accidentally discovered yesterday evening. I have been watching the tomato for the past week as it tried to ripen and held my breath that a squirrel would not take a chunk out of it.

The pepper is new to me. Seeds were touted by a lady at the February seed exchange [posted 2012.02.11] as a 'Hungarian Pepper' grown every year because it was the best. The internet tells me there are oodles of peppers with this name; some hot, some not. Fast forward to last month, and a few long yellow peppers appeared on the plant. They were left to see how large they would grow, and if they would turn red or orange. This one started to turn, so I brought it in today with the tomato. My 8-inch long (20 cm) Hungarian pepper's appearance is not unlike those infernal red Thai peppers - let's hope not - I don't need peppers to go along with the weather.

PS - The pepper was not hot. It was very flavorful but there's not a lot of pepper.

Garden Calendar:   • Blooming: zinnia, rudbeckia, cleome, cosmos, sunflowers, nicotiana, echinacea, platycodon, cardoon   • Harvested: 1 pepper, 1 tomato, 1 cucumber, several cherry tomatoes