Fried Green Tomatoes

Yes, Fried Green Tomatoes; never had it and never thought I would like it.  As of tonight, I have and I do. We had all those large green German tomatoes and doubt that they will ever get ripe so we decided to give it a try. All that remains of the 15.5 ounce tomato, which is still impressive!  A few days ago, we have a strong wind from the NE that toppled the topheavy German tomato plant.  We were able to save some of the larger tomatoes.  A couple were starting to change color so we have them in a paper bag in the garden window with hopes they will ripen.  The largest was this one, shown below.  Smallest that we saved weigh at least 11 ounces. 

Giant German Tomato

Insides of Tomato

The broccoli is toast.... I set up a new tub with fresh soil and planted some more seeds.  Will see if I can salvage any of the first crop, but I have my doubts. I covered them the other day, probably a few weeks too late, but, covered, nonetheless. I picked off about 10 of these little chew masters.  The one plant had three on it at the time I had my camera! Cabbage worms or Cabbage White Butterfly caterpillars. Neither/nor, the diatomaceous had absolutely zero impact on them.😩

Ugh velvety green caterpillars	Three Ughs on One Demolished Plant
More Demolished Broccoli	Moth/Insect/Butterfly Covers

Final Week August 2019

The chicks are a month old now, and are all getting quite large.  Poor lazy confused birds.  I threw an ear of fresh corn in the pen and they just stood there and looked at it.  We patiently waited for them to figure out that it was food, but alas, that never happened.  They laid on it, instead.  Now, when we throw an ear of corn in with the hens, one will grab it and run, trying to keep it for herself. Today, they each got their own ear, and there was no chasing necessary by the others because they truly cannot grab two ears at the same time.  :) 

1 month old Cornish cross

A lazy afternoon

As we head into our fall planting season, we are wrapping up the harvest of beans, corn, and dill. I pick a hand full of Sungold cherry tomatoes every day and this is going to be a long harvest through September. The German tomatoes are massive. Too heavy for the plant to stand on its own. Had to put the bucket into a tub and place a cinder block next to hold it up. We are getting about one ripe Purple Cherokee Tomato per week. They are not as large as the German but there are a couple that are fairly large. 

Large Gold German	Bucket in the Tub
Purple Cherokee Tomatoes	SunGold Tomatoes

The cucumber plants (at least the older ones) are starting to die back so that was a fairly short season, but we did get a bunch of cucumbers.  I am hopeful to get three more here at the end of the season that I can pickle. 

Older Cucumber Plant going Yellow

Crazy Carrot - I kept watching this one carrot in the center of the others that never seemed to mature - no orange top that popped up through the soil. But today, Noticed that the of the leaves was thick and very spinney looking, like a wild carrot would look.  So I pulled it up, and to my surprise, it WAS a wild carrot! Crazy. 

Wild Carrot in Garden The Lettuce and the Broccoli are in a battle with Slugs and Beetles.  On the Broccoli, I think the tiny holes are from flea beetles, while the large chewed away sections are from slugs.  For the past few nights, I have been sprinkling a layer of diatomaceous earth (DE) around the broccoli starts and I think it is helping.  As for the lettuce, I wrapped Copper tape around the pots. But it only works until a leaf falls over the side and the slugs reach out and pull over over the copper! Smart Slugs!  Poor damaged broccoli sprouts Baby Romaine We pulled 18 ears of corn today.  I blanched 15 of them for frozen corn packets. That will give us five meals of corn. I found another ear with conjoined baby ears. This one actually had two baby ears attached. Some seriously weird corn this year. We also picked a bunch of green beans.  I had tried to freeze some green beans earlier this month, using an unblanched recipe, and we were not too impressed.  So today, I chopped the beans in half and blanched them for three minutes before putting them into individual serving (sandwich) bags for the freezer. We will get three meals from what we picked today.  When they are totally frozen, I will put the bags into large freezer bags to avoid them getting freezer burn... if they last that long. So we are heading into our final week of August.

77 days to Ripe Corn

So the corn is ripe a little sooner than I anticipated.  The corn I planted this year was Early Sunglow which has a maturity date of 65 days.  Supposedly, the corn is ripe 16 days after the silk appears... Last year, that's exactly how it happened. But this year, the silk was forming at about day 58 and was truly ripe at day 77, 19 days later. But, this year, weird things have been happening too.  Perhaps the really hot temps early in June, then the really cool temps and humidity back and forth over the month of July to now caused the corn to be stressed?  The amount of tillers, for one. The kernel ears on the tillers for second. Plus the baby corn inside the husk, right next to a full sized ear.... it's definitely been a year for strange corn growth that I don't have any experience with. (I'm still looking on corn sites to find an explanation for conjoined ears of corn.)

So I am done fertilizing the rows and now it is just a harvest and watering from this point on. Then we knock back the stalks and if we were proactive, we could cover the garden this fall to kill any and all weeds until we are ready to plant again next year. 

Ears are ready to pick

Tassel Ears

Conjoined Ears Separated

Mid August 2019 Garden Update

While August has been cooler than the past few years, it is certainly not the coolest August ever. On the other hand, it is already the wettest.  Thunder clouds and lightning moved in just before the the weekend, then a downpour of rain. Lightning struck near our place on Friday night, August 10, and when the wireless router started smoking, I knew we were in trouble. Even though we use a local Internet provider (based on our region) there are no stores nearby. The two closest stores are both over a four hour drive away... one to the southwest on the coast, and the other to the east, each over 230 miles away; just to pick up a replacement would have meant an 9 hour drive round trip. So, the replacement was sent out Monday afternoon and arrived this afternoon. Thank you, UPS! Then, the tech support needed to reset the FiOS box (I don't know what they called it). While on the phone, I had to find the FiOS box, unplug it from the power, they did something to cause a "reset" and then I plugged it back in. So, let's just say that even when electronics are plugged into surge protectors, that's not always a guarantee that a huge bolt of electricity won't end up frying the electronics.

On the plant front, the cooler temps and rain over the weekend switched over to 80+ temps on Monday with lots of sunshine, which resulted in a lot of plants ripening up right quick.  The corn is on the edge of ripe. Most of the carrots are done, and I planted spinach seeds in that area of the garden. I replanted lettuce for the next round. I harvested the thyme before the rains hit. I picked six nice sized cucumbers and forgot to take a pix before they were all gone. Radishes are mostly done. Beans are still producing like crazy so we are eating fresh green beans every other night. Real sized Tomatoes are finally starting to ripen.  The Sungold cherry tomato plant is so heavy with fruit, it keeps falling over.  We cut a lot of the tops off to help it from being to top heavy.  Threw away about 25 green cherry tomatoes because, in truth, there are just way too many.

Trying to stay ahead of the garden so that we don't end up having to throw away too much.

Purple Cherokee almost ripe	Nice Sized Purple Cherokee
Blurry Purple Cherokee Tomato	Huge German Tomato
Almost the last of the radishes	Almost the last of the carrots and the start of the corn

UPDATE - August 15

The bumble bee in the dill was an nice thing to see this morning.  Also, took some updates on the cucumbers. There is one bee that seems to have adopted the task of pollinating for me on the cucumbers, so that's a nice bee to be thankful for.

Remember the corn tillers (suckers) that I left on. Well, it turns out there are a bit hermaphrodite-ish on the tassels.  Although many of the tillers have tassels now, and several have ears of corn on them, a few of the tassels on the tillers also have two or more kernels on them. None of the main stalks' tassels have kernels of corn (and silk). Just a few of the ones that are are tillers are that way.

A little more reading from corn experts, this is known as Tassel Ears and sometimes a whole ear of corn forms on the tassel which typically occur on the tillers.  They nothing more than "bird food" so to speak and if they occur on the main stalk, it is because of damage to the stalks, or field.

11 weeks after planting, we have ripe corn and we pulled three tonight for dinner. Sweet corn on the cob!

Square garden beans did much better this year, than last.  So I will need to freeze beans to keep from wasting them. Carrots also did much better this year.  Despite the crazy summer weather, the plants seem to be working through it. In about a month, mid September, I should have cilantro and spinach. My favorite fall plants.

BumbleBee in the Dill	BumbleBee different angle
Baby Cuke	Pickle sized Cuke
Salad Cuke	And All Three Sizes Together
Square Garden Growing	Green - String Beans
A handful of ripe Sungolds	Corn Mostly Ready
A few Kernels on Tassels	Tassels, kernels with silk

It's Wild Blackberry Season 2019

We will have a series of hot days that started with today. I waited until twilight to traipse across our field to the neighbor's fence and picked as many berries as I could get in 15 minutes. Two pounds worth and are now in the freezer for yummy eating later this summer. I will attempt to do that again tomorrow evening.  It's right at the time that the day is starting to cool off and before the mosquitoes are buzzing. 

2 lb of wild blackberries I just picked.

On other gardening updates, it was too hot in the sun for the tomatoes and the bell peppers, so they have been moved to morning sun and afternoon shade to keep them from burning their fruit. Cucumbers continue to pollinate. We have three cucumbers that are five inches long and one that is four inches. Soon!  Pulled more carrots today.  Nice and sweet. They make a great evening snack. 

Thinned out the lettuce. I counted 19 broccoli sprouts. I have five Romaine lettuce starts now. Keep pulling about three to four ripe Sungold tomatoes every day. Cute little orange round orbs. Still waiting for the Chocolate cherry tomatoes to ripen. Boy are they slow! Pulled off some of the Purple Cherokee.  Any branch that has more than three on it are getting thinned because those tomatoes are huge and two tomatoes are plenty per branch. 

Corn ears continue to fill in. Picked about 1/2 pound of green beans yesterday for dinner. Just perfect. Still nice and tender although they are about five to six inches long. I will try to get my radishes pulled tomorrow morning and get them pickled.

August 4 - Update
Rather than creating a new post - I'll just add to yesterdays. Today, I whipped up a pint of sweet pickled radishes and a quart of dill pickled cucumbers. Both are refrigerator versions and should be ready to eat in 48 hours. I also picked another 2 lb 3 oz of blackberries tonight. If I do this every night for the rest of the season, I could, conceivably have a freezer full of blackberries! The first frozen batch of berries filled a 2-quart freezer bag! If I am so inclined, I can make up some blackberry jelly or a pie for some event. Or, just eat them! 😋

Temps were over 90 today.  Thankfully the dewpoint & humidity were a little lower today. Put the sunshade over the greenhouse and hung another shade over the back deck to protect the tomato plants from the hot early afternoon sun.